


all the quiet nights you bear (seal them up with care)

by jolt



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst-lite, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, So Much Introspection I'm Now Having an Identity Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:29:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolt/pseuds/jolt
Summary: Mitch is also so different, in hundreds of infinitesimal ways, and has been all season. He holds himself differently, taller, and speaks carefully as though he’s trying to be more mindful about what he says and how he says it. Even when he’s being wild and loud andMitch, there’s almost a prudence behind everything he does, where there wasn’t before. It’s not a bad change, Auston reasons. Mostly it’s a stepping stone towards, like, maturity or whatever the fuck, but the challenge is in the quiet moments when Auston feels like he’s suddenly a million miles behind with no hope of catching up in time.(Or, Mitch has a boyfriend. Auston wishes he didn’t care so much.)





	all the quiet nights you bear (seal them up with care)

**Author's Note:**

> TOTALLY AND UTTERLY FICTIONAL SELF-INDULGENT ANGST OF THE PINING VARIETY. PEOPLE ARE REAL BUT THE STORY IS (UNFORTUNATELY?) ALL MINE.
> 
> So, hey guys. I actually finished a thing! I started this (*shudder*) in OCTOBER and had most of the main scenes written early on. Unfortunately, it's taken me a while to whittle it all down and write the rest of it but I DID IT. 
> 
> Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting when I sat down and wrote this, but 30k of emotional stupidity and pining and jealousy was not it. In any case, I hope you enjoy this extremely self-indulgent slow burn and don’t mind me for not fully hashing out the implications of semi-openly gay NHL players, and for entertaining an incredibly sketchy timeline. Also, this fic is set in whatever happy universe allowed Willy to sign a contract before training camp.

 

The pavement outside the arena is slick with rain. Steady droplets fall from the sky, beating down on every exposed surface in an easy rhythm, like they’re being drawn to the earth by a magnetic force. The sky is vast and grey, with rolls of dramatic clouds darkening up the horizon. It seems to swallow up the arena, even as Auston drives up and parks right in front of it. He steps out of his car into what feels like the eye of a half-hearted storm. 

Auston has been back in Toronto for all of five hours, but he’s already feeling more at ease than he has all summer. He missed _rain_. It’s kind of stupid, he thinks to himself as he hauls his bag over one shoulder and slams the trunk of his car shut. It’s just weather, but the effect on his mood was immediate. The moment his red-eye landed, he knew he was home. It’s nothing at all like Arizona, all smog and humidity, people who turn their heads when he walks down the street. But for better or for worse, Toronto is home now.

“Heads up!” Auston hears a familiar voice call, and not half a second later, he’s forced to drop his bag at his side so he can brace for an armful of William Nylander.

“Oof - ” He exhales, the air punched out of his lungs as Willy uses his momentum to also hook his legs around Auston’s waist. “How much weight did you put on? It’s impossible to -” He breaks off, depositing Willy back on the ground, “lift you.”

Willy just shrugs with a smile, and walks back a few feet to pick up his own bag where he dropped it before pouncing. He’s wearing a sweater with the hood pulled loose over his head, which feels inappropriate considering the nasty humidity in the atmosphere. Auston grabs his own bag and bumps Willy’s shoulder while they walk inside together.

It’s only an optional practice this morning, informal, mostly for the guys who’ve filtered slowly back into the city before training camp officially starts. A few guys aren’t back yet, and some are only there because they hope it will give them an advantage in making the final roster. But although the memo insisted it would be a casual skate, Auston’s still buzzing with anticipation. It feels like he hasn’t skated all summer, even though he’s sought out ice time like a life source whenever it was feasible over the past few months.

They’re hardly a full team today, but it’ll feel good to stretch his limbs, and to acquaint himself with the training staff. Even Babs. Being in Toronto is a helpful reminder of who he is, what he’s capable of. He smiles, just for the sake of it, and lets Willy talk his ear off about the epic party his sisters tricked him into throwing this summer.

 

-x-

 

The following night, Mo throws a welcome back thing at his new place. Auston’s had just enough time to sleep off the first practice and his jet lag, and does a half-assed job of unpacking his suitcase before calling an Uber to haul himself over to the party. Yesterday’s storm has eased up some, the only traces left are the puddles that collect in the dips in the street and a smudge of purple clouds that overcast the sky in hazy light

Auston’s thrumming by the time he gets to Mo’s place. He misses the boys, misses _Mitch_ \- whom he hasn’t spoken to at all today, besides the mandatory morning snap - and he can’t wait to just enjoy some calm before the rigor of the season starts anew.

Everyone’s in good spirits, tonight. It’s the first time they’ve been together in months; they’re all loose and happy because the season’s just on the verge of starting. These preseason events are always buoyed by the team’s renewed influx of hope and excitement. All of last year’s disappointments are behind them, by now, and all that remains is the potential that lies in the future. Theirs to seize.

Auston is nursing a Molson Ex, and keeping an eye on his phone in case Mitch finally decides to let him know he’s alive. It finally lights up just as he’s reaching for his second beer, and he’s only mildly disappointed it’s Will texting him and not Mitch.

When he swipes the notification, all Willy’s text says is _don’t say i didn’t warn you_. It’s ominous as fuck and Auston has several questions typed out and ready to send back, when Willy himself comes barrelling into the room.

“Dude, what the - ” Auston starts, trying to decipher the message Willy is trying to convey with his bizarre face contortions. He doesn’t finish his sentence, because the next thing he knows, Mitch is strolling in through Mo’s threshold, followed by some handsome guy Auston’s never met before. Auston has to crane his neck in confusion, because he’s not quite sure, but it looks like Mitch is -

Holding his hand. They’re holding hands. Which -

It’s new, is all.

Auston figures he must be gaping, a little, because Willy pointedly rolls his eyes, then. He even does a little show of waving a hand in front of Auston’s face, like a dick.

“I _said_ don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he says with a shrug.

“You wanted to warn me... about this…?” Auston repeats, a little confused. He tries to form a sentence around Mitch showing up completely unannounced, holding someone’s hand, but all he gets out is, “Like, this guy is…?”

Willy catches on, and snickers. “Yeah, your boyfriend got a boyfriend.”

“Since when?” he asks, ignoring Willy’s quip, and Willy shrugs again unhelpfully. It seems a little unfair that Mitch just appeared with a boyfriend before telling Auston he was even seeing someone, let alone before even giving Auston the chance to vet the guy. Auston takes a long pull of his beer.

Mitch and the boyfriend in question are socializing with Gards and Lucy, still in the front hall. Whatever the guy’s saying, he’s making them laugh uproariously, which isn’t that much of a feat, since they’re good, kind people. They laugh easily. Auston plucks his beer off its coaster and stands up off the couch with a salute that Willy reciprocates.

He gets pulled into several different conversations on his way over to Mitch, but he hardly has the heart to cut them short. He’s happy, too, other than the mild confusion about this mystery man who’s got his hand in the small of his best friend’s back, standing a few inches taller than him, sporting a beard that actually looks mature rather than experimental.

Auston’s only standing in front of Mitch and the mystery man twelve minutes after he left Willy on the couch. Mitch has barely made it ten feet into the condo, but he looks happy and warm, and he’s sipping something pale pink from a plastic wine glass. He shoves said plastic wine glass in his guest’s chest the instant there’s no one standing in between them, and throws his arms around Auston in a hug. Auston smiles, pulling Mitch in while being mindful of the fact that he’s still gripping his beer in one hand. The hug feels different from their others, but Auston files that thought away because _finally_. The final, missing piece in Auston feeling truly himself, truly home in Toronto is in front of him at last.

“Hi, Mitchy,” Auston says, smiling even as he lets Mitch go. “Didn’t see you at practice yesterday.” He knocks Mitch’s snapback slightly askew, and Mitch makes a theatrically pouty face before adjusting it.

He then reclaims his glass and takes a swig. “We just got in this afternoon!” he answers, and judging by his decibel level, whatever’s in that cup’s already hitting him pretty hard. Mystery man nudges him, and he blushes. “This is Theo, by the way.”

 _Theo_ sticks out a hand. “Hey, man,” he says pleasantly. Auston shakes his hand. “I know who you are already, obviously.”

Auston grunts, hoping it comes out sounding like a laugh. “Ha, yeah.” He fidgets, slightly unnerved by the undeniably piercing nature of Theo’s gaze.

Theo winks. “Hit ’em with the four — ” he starts.

“Obviously, I played him the song.” Mitch interrupts.

Auston groans, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You didn’t.”

“He did!” Theo supplies. “It was awesome.”

Mitch bumps his shoulder against Theo’s, smiling wide like there’s an inside joke there. Auston’s just not sure which one of them it’s supposed to be with. “ _So_ awesome.”

Auston takes a second to compose himself some. “You, uh… said you just got in? Where from?” he asks, and he’s not sure if it’s the beer or just getting caught off-guard having to meet someone new that’s got him struggling, parsing his words.

“Vancouver, dude,” Mitch replies, like the answer should be obvious. “Did you not get my snaps?”

Auston did, obviously. They were mostly scenery blocked by a million stickers and bitmojis, or selfies of Mitch alone. In those snaps, and in every other Auston had received this summer, Mitch had somehow avoided mentioning the fact that he had a… better half.

“Yeah, sorry. Slipped my mind,” Auston answers, and downs the rest of his beer in one gulp. “So, you… this is… you’re…?” He starts, waving his empty bottle up and down abstractly.

Mitch rolls his eyes. “Theo is my boyfriend, yes. Please stop being weird.”

Auston shifts his weight from foot to foot, unsure if he should be congratulating them, or something. He settles with a deadpan, “You know, if you hurt him, they’ll never find your body,” relieved when it makes them both laugh. It’s a stupid joke, clichéd and clumsy, but part of him does means it, so it’s worth something, at least. Anybody who dates Mitch should respect him and treat him well, and if they hurt Auston’s best friend, well, they’ll have to answer to all six-foot-three, 220 pounds of him.

“Every single person I’ve met tonight has told me that.” Theo laughs, swinging an arm around Mitch’s shoulders, easy. He tilts his head towards Mitch, leans in, and speaks with enough bravado that Auston suspects he’s meant to hear. “Guess I’d better not hurt you, then.”

“Guess not.” Mitch shrugs, and actually, honest to god, gets on his tiptoes so he can bump their noses together. Theo’s barely an inch taller than Mitch, so it’s an exaggerated gesture; meant, Auston presumes, to be cutesy and indulgent and completely unlike anything Auston thought Mitch capable of.

“Who is that person and what has he done to Mitch?” Auston says later, slipping into a circle with Willy, Zach, and Brownie.

“He’s in love, leave him alone,” Brownie says, as he claps Auston’s shoulder.

Auston shudders. “It’s _frightening_.” And it is.

“Oh, shit, here he comes,” Willy hisses, before reaching out to wave exaggeratedly.

Auston half-expects Mitch to join their circle, and has to check his disappointment when Zach and Brownie shift to make room for Theo, instead.

“No offense,” Willy starts, eyebrows practically reaching his hairline, “but Mitch is, like, twelve. What’s in it for you?”

“Smooth — ” Zach mutters, shaking his head.

Theo looks skeptical, glancing back and forth between the four of them. Auston wants to lean in and reassure him that invasive, stupid lines of questioning is just how Willy drunkenly gets to know most people, but he also wants to see Theo squirm, for half a second more.

“Well,” Theo says, curt but with a grin. “First of all, he’s not actually as much of a tall child as you all seem to think. So I’d say I get a lot out of it, actually. Assuming relationships exist only for two people to benefit off each other.”

Zach whistles low and Auston blinks a few times, making sense of what Theo just said. Whatever joke Willy was aiming for dies right there on the floor in front of them, and Auston visibly watches Willy’s smug face deflate at Theo’s kind of sweet, mostly lame answer. It’s back up in no time, though, when Will calls over to Mitch, “Marns, your guy’s defending you over here,” without taking his eyes off Theo. He says it like a chirp but Auston swears he looks a little impressed.

“Fuck yeah he is!” Mitch calls back, from the opposite side of the living room. “He’s the best.”

When Theo laughs at that, Auston notices that Willy and Zach’s shoulders relax. His own stay tense, but that’s only because he still feels like there’s a lot he doesn’t know about Mitch’s mysterious boyfriend, and like he should probably keep an eye on him.

Mitch isn’t the first of their teammates to suddenly flip a 180 the moment they get cuffed, to become an insufferable sap around their SO. But it’s _Mitch_ , and Auston has seen him dab naked and shout with his mouth full of food and various other combinations of depraved situations completely irreconcilable with this lovey-dovey thing he’s been projecting tonight. Auston knows that people are, like, multitudes. If Shrek taught him anything, it’s that everyone i layered, like onions, so who knows. Maybe Mitch did have this completely smitten, gooey side all along. Auston can’t reconcile these two Mitch’s, is all.

He never expected Mitch to get a boyfriend, either, and for no discernible reason than he just genuinely never considered it a possibility. It’s stupid, a little, but given how _together_ they’ve been for everything else in their first two seasons, Auston just reasoned that Mitch wouldn’t start dating anybody without, like, giving him a head’s up. Or, at the very least, telling him about it before just _appearing_ at the start of the season with a boyfriend.

They’d kept in touch over the summer, of course. Their snap streak is over 700 days long, and they never quite run out of dumb things to say, memes to share, vine compilations to send back and forth, and whatnot. Naturally, though, the off-season is a time for vacationing, and bulking up, and spending time with people you don’t see for the other seven months of the year, so maybe there was never a great time to bring it up. Besides, if there were ever any lapses in their conversations, Auston was always too busy to notice. Mitch would’ve been too busy, too.

Auston doesn’t see much more of Mitch for the rest of the night. Everyone seems pretty keen on introducing themselves to Theo, who is apparently studying to be a surgeon. Admittedly, he makes a pretty baller total package, so despite their understandable honeymoon phase antics, Auston’s happy for Mitch. He chalks up his awkwardness to the unsettling fact that Mitch fell in actual, for real in _love_ this summer, and didn’t say a word.

 

-x-

 

The next day, practice is mandatory.

Auston rarely drives himself and Mitch to practice, is rarely awake enough to navigate Toronto traffic when it gets time to going, but he finds himself strangely alert this morning. Practice was mercifully scheduled closer to lunch than to dawn, which may explain it, but Auston’s feeling good. Any traces of a hangover cleared up within half a cup of coffee, and he decides to FaceTime Mitch when he finishes brushing his teeth.

“Yo,” Mitch greets, answering after one ring.

“You need a ride to practice?” Auston asks.

“Nah, man, Theo’s driving me,” Mitch answers, stuffing his head through a t-shirt and ruffling his hair. Auston’s known Mitch long enough to no longer be surprised or impressed by the things he can do single-handedly while on a FaceTime call. “He has class and it’s on his way, sort of.”

Auston’s feels a twinge of disappointment, but he swats it away in favour of a lazy chirp. “Living that catered lifestyle, huh, buddy?” he asks, grinning, and Mitch responds with a thumbs up.

“Can’t complain.”

The camera shifts, and the sound gets muffled for a second, before Theo himself appears in the frame.

“Say hi to Auston,” Mitch tells him, ducking his head away so Theo can nudge further into team.

He gives Auston a quick wave. “Hey, man. How’s it going?”

It may not be the ass-crack of dawn, but it still feels marginally too early to interact with somebody he’s only met once in earnest.

“Not bad, not bad,” Auston replies. Luckily, he doesn’t have to silently stare at Theo for too much longer. Mitch pulls the phone back, shoved at a horrendous angle that show more nostril than anything else.

“So I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s kick some ass!” Mitch hollers, and Auston’s laughing while he hangs up.

It’s not a big deal. Their glorious carpooling schedule of seasons’ past has just taken a hit, is all. Considering how often Auston spent their past car rides nearly comatose in the passenger’s seat with sleep-deprived exhaustion, he can’t imagine it’ll impact all that much in the grand scheme of things. If Theo is willing to take on the mantle of being Mitch’s chauffeur, Auston’s hardly the type to stop him. Besides, Mitch probably doesn’t want to be the one driving all the time anyway.

 

-x-

 

Despite seeing each other nearly every day at practice, Auston finds himself a week back into schedule without having spent any real time with Mitch.

They really haven’t had the chance to catch up, just the two of them, and for all that rekindling chemistry has never been a problem for them, Auston doesn’t like _not_ spending time with Mitch, as a rule.

On Thursday, the night before their first preseason game against the Sens, Auston decides to change that. He finds himself debating whether he should drive the short distance, or walk, or take an Uber to Mitch’s, unsure even if he should text first or just show up unannounced. They usually text first, but that doesn’t mean spontaneous visits have ever been out of the question. The likelihood of Auston potentially interrupting Mitch’s time with his boyfriend - or worse, interrupting them in the middle of boning down - are high, but Auston hates sitting around twiddling his thumbs. After a while, Auston decides he’s overthinking it, and takes the elevator down to his parking garage.

It’s a ten minute drive to Mitch’s, traffic permitted, which is probably not best for the environment, but — sue him. Auston just wants to see how Mitch is doing. His off-season was clearly eventful, but there are gaps in his timeline, stuff they didn’t share via text or Snapchat, that Auston wants to fill in person.

By the time he makes it go Mitch’s building, let in the front door by an elderly neighbour he vaguely recognizes, Auston has upwards of a hundred different questions for him —

( _What did you do this summer_ and _How did you meet Theo_ and _What do you think of our power play unit_ and _Should we name it_ )

— but they all die in his throat when Mitch opens his front door in a _Kiss the cook_ apron.

“Now’s not the best time,” Mitch says apologetically, stepping aside to let Auston into the condo.

“I can leave,” Auston offers, but Mitch shakes his head and runs a duster over the table in the front hallway where he keeps several scented candles and a bowl of keys.

“I mean, if you don’t mind me just cleaning, you’re welcome to stay.”

Auston would rather die than admit to Mitch that sitting around on a couch all day is really not as much fun without him. Let alone that sitting around on a couch and watching him clean actually sounds kind of okay. So he toes off his shoes and pads further into Mitch’s condo. It looks the same as it did the last time Auston was here, months ago. Somehow, the potted fern in the living room is still alive; though Auston figures Mitch probably has someone take care of it during the summer. Or, it’s probably just himself, since he always lives here. Duh.

That’s when Auston notices a pot on Mitch’s stove, a chopping block and knife with some stubby vegetable ends on his countertop and a bottle of what looks like good red wine decanting by the fridge.

Auston whistles slowly, nodding his head in the direction of Mitch’s strange kitchen tableau. “Fancy,” he says.

Mitch follows his line of sight and rolls his eyes. “Date night,” he explains, and goes to dump the ends of the vegetables on the chopping block into the garburator.

Mitch’s place is the same as it’s always been, the eternal melange of Ikea furniture they assembled together as rookies and nicer, more quality pieces that his mom picked. Auston plunks himself down on Mitch’s couch — one of Bonnie’s finer choices — and pulls his phone out from his sweater pocket. He opens Twitter out of instinct and slides down his feed. “You got too good for the box?” he asks, and Mitch trips over the area rug.

“Excuse me?”

“The boxed wine?” Auston supplies. Last season, in some odd compromise between pretending to be mature while also brand-appropriate idiotic, he and Mitch pounded back countless boxes of wine whenever they were drinking together. At parties, they’d do half-serious wine taps, just using the spout from the boxed wine. It was pretty gross, because chugging wine is _painful_ , but it became their thing, kind of.

Mitch just shrugs. “A bottle’s just a bit nicer, dude,”

Auston hooks his chin over the edge of the couch, watching with slight confusion as Mitch rushes between dusting his countertops and stirring the sauce that bubbles on the stove. It’s weird to see him so… frenzied, and it prompts Auston to ask, “Why do you care so much about this?”

Mitch stops and looks up at Auston. “Uh, because it’s date night with my boyfriend?” he answers slowly.

“Yeah, but like, when I’m with a girl, I don’t obsess over things like you are,” Auston says, gesturing abstractly into the air in front of him. It’s maybe not the best point of reference, Auston’s love life, since his track record is so far underground it’s practically subterranean.  

Mitch calls his bluff. “No offense, but I think that says more about you than it does about me, bud,” he says, reaching in a drawer and pulling out two napkins. Like, actual _cloth_ napkins, which he then goes and places on his dining table. Whenever Auston stays for dinner, they just use paper towel.

Auston shrugs it off. “Just saying, I’ve never cooked for anyone before.”

“That’s cause you’ve never dated anyone long enough to cook for them,” Mitch answers, all sweet sarcasm, while he makes his way back into the kitchen to retrieve two wine glasses and silverware.

Auston ignores him. “It’s not like you’ve been dating Theo all that long, either.” Weirdly, Auston starts to feel clunky, too big and cumbersome for this space. His chest is doing that thing where it constricts, getting all panicky for nothing, like he’s physiologically reacting to Mitch being a good boyfriend.

Mitch comes over and taps Auston’s head a few times with his duster, which has reappeared in his hand. “Seriously, man, you’re not painting yourself in the best light, here.” He laughs, and Auston relaxes a little with the lightness in his tone, the usual banter quelling whatever weird stress about not being as good a date as Mitch has stirred inside him. “By the way, he’ll be here in twenty, so you should probably head out soon, yeah?”

Auston shifts on the couch, makes a move to sit up straighter. “Yeah, okay, I’m going.”

“Oh, but before you go — try this for me?” Mitch says, rounding the corner with a spoonful of meat sauce. Before Auston can say something about not signing up for being subjected to dangerous cooking experiments, Mitch is jabbing the spoon into his mouth.

It’s surprisingly not half bad, for somebody who once considered pizza rolls haute cuisine.

“Did you add a pinch of sugar?” Auston asks, tugging on his Nikes.

Mitch just blinks at him. “Um, no?”

“My mom always does,” Auston explains. “She says it rounds out the flavour of the tomatoes.”

Mitch nods dutifully and then disappears into the kitchen. “How much in a pinch?” He calls.

“I dunno, Marns, just _pinch_ it!” Auston calls back, feeling around his pockets for his wallet and keys.

Mitch reemerges holding a five-pound bag of sugar. “Can you do it?” he asks. Auston sighs, but he takes the sugar when Mitch pushes it in front of him.

He follows Mitch back into the kitchen, and washes his hands at the sink before turning to stand in front of the pot of sauce. He pries the bag of sugar open and slowly, deliberately reaches his hand in, grabs a pinch, and sprinkles it into the sauce. He takes the wooden spoon resting beside the stove and gives the sauce a stir.

“Okay, now try,” Auston says, letting some sauce into the wooden spoon and holding it up for Mitch, with his other hand cradled underneath to catch any spills.

Mitch leans in and gingerly tastes the sauce. His eyes light up. “Okay, how did that make a complete difference?”

“My mom’s a sauce genius,” Auston answers with a shrug.

“Sauce whisperer.” Mitch nods.

“Sauce master."

Mitch snickers. Auston realizes he’s still holding the spoon in front of Mitch’s mouth and quickly sets it back down. “I’m gonna go, now. Have fun tonight.”

Mitch waggles his eyebrows. “You know I will.”

Auston laughs, but it feels rote, more muscle-memory than genuine. “Okay,” he says, “see ya.” and he heads back to Mitch’s front entrance to let himself out.

“Thanks for your help!” Mitch shouts, and Auston smiles to himself as he latches the door shut behind him.

 

-x-

 

Pre-season is always kind of a blur for Auston.

Most of it is spent trying to coerce his muscles and limbs into remembering what they’re supposed to do and how they’re supposed to move when he’s chasing pucks down the ice. There’s the usual static that he has to work through, the tender hamstrings that require uncomfortably long ice baths. But he’s always back to his usual sharp self, by the first game of the season. Focused. Determined. Impossibly high off adrenaline, nine times out of ten.

Not to mention, the team is more confident, this season. There’s an undercurrent, anticipation rooted in something that’s growing, flourishing before everyone’s eyes. Practices have been clicking, and with the addition of JT, it’s hard to deny the excitement building in the locker room.

That hope starts manifesting by the start of the regular season. It takes shape as something unspoken and true that lands at the tip of his tongue and stays there because he’s too afraid that if he speaks it out loud, it’ll all fall apart. Like all of a sudden, things are so good he’s getting superstitious. He’s getting commended for showing personality outside of the rink, and he’s embarking on the point streak to end all point streaks, and it all makes Auston feel a bit like he’s soaring.

The main difference in Auston’s life this season is Mitch. Or, more accurately, the lack of Mitch, the Great Mitch Drought of 2018, he’s currently experiencing. Calling it a drought is probably excessive, but Mitch’s presence is so insistent, huge like a hurricane, that it’s impossible to not feel some emptiness in his life now that Mitch has started spending all his free time with his new boyfriend. It leaves Auston to stare down the major disruption in their previously codependent friendship and figure out a way to feel normal on his feet alone.

He doesn’t begrudge Mitch for that, or anything.

Auston’s knows people who get all cagey whenever their friends start dating someone new, who start asking them to pick between their SO and their friends. Auston’s never been one for ultimatums. Plus, he knows what it’s like to get attached and not want to leave someone’s side. So he tries not to give Mitch too hard a time about his sudden self-dismissal from all events that don’t involve the partners.

Auston is happy being alone, though. He likes it, even. Despite being one of maybe five or six single guys on the team, he revels in it. Their schedule makes it virtually impossible to date casually; the frantic schedule and obligatory focus on team stuff requires a partner understanding and patient enough to put up with all that. Besides, Auston likes being single. Parts of him are too selfish, he thinks, to want to share with someone else. Not to mention the thought of being in a relationship right now sounds draining. He doesn’t like the idea of sharing himself, dividing himself into tiny palatable pieces to spoon-feed to a person trying to get to know him. The thought of making himself vulnerable just for the sake of making someone else more comfortable makes him uneasy. It’s too much pressure, too much effort.  

He’s tried before, and it’s always blown up in his face, or run out of steam so fast he wonders if he just wasted his time. Auston’s not a bad guy, and doesn’t like feeling like feeling like a bad guy, so the almost definite possibility of hurting someone just because he’s the one who would be away constantly and because he’s the one who doesn’t like to tear his walls down for just anyone, just cancels out any temptation.

 

-x-

 

“So… what’s it like being a surgeon?”

Auston doesn’t consider himself skilled at small-talk. He’s gotten better at it over the years, especially in Toronto, where you either learn to talk in sound-bytes or drown - but he doesn’t particularly enjoy it.

It’s a night out like any other. Their game earlier wasn’t exceptional, but they won, and Auston even snagged himself a goal and an assist. By this point, the novelty of his _record-smashing start to the season_ is starting to wear off. He loves the feeling of netting pucks, but he may actually smash the iPhone of the next reporter to ask him _how it feels_ or _how he plans to keep it up_. After a win of any kind in Toronto, though, it’s hard to keep a low profile. Luckily, it’s early enough in the season that the other people at the bar leave them alone. Auston figures it’s as good a time as any to put in some effort and get to know Mitch’s boyfriend. Small talk or not.

“Technically, I’m not a surgeon yet,” Theo answers with a small laugh. “But, I mean, it’s pretty exciting.”

Auston peels at the label of the beer he’s been nursing since they snagged their seats. He figures he’s got about two or three decent sips left, but he’s in no real rush to finish it. Mitch offered to grab the next round, anyway, and Auston watches now as he leans over the bar, balancing himself in the way he tends to do when he’s on the verge of tipsy. The other guys are either talking amongst themselves or half-heartedly trying to pick up, leaving Auston and Theo to acquaint themselves in the corner.

“Is it like Grey’s Anatomy?” Auston asks, before realizing everyone must make that comparison, and that it sounds superficial and dumb. “Sorry.”

Theo laughs again, bigger this time. “No, it’s cool,” he says. “Some of it is, I guess. There’s a lot that’s over the top for TV, though. I haven’t seen much of Grey’s Anatomy, to be honest.”

Auston doesn’t really know Theo well enough to react with the proper amount of surprise. In their rookie season, he and Mitch watched the entire series on Netflix, spent hours in front of Mitch’s TV playing chicken with who was going to openly cry first. That kind of shit bonds you, and Auston doesn’t know how to relate to someone who’s never endured that level of Shonda Rhimes-induced emotional trauma.

“Yeah, man,” Auston says back, hunching his shoulders. There’s not much else he can say, he supposes, but his brain is slow to come up with a way out of this subject. He’s not the best conversationalist, but it shouldn’t be this _hard_ to talk to this guy.

“I mean, it’s not like you guys sit around watching hockey movies, or whatever.” Theo coughs, trailing a finger through the tracks of condensation on the table. He at least seems better at navigating the awkwardness than Auston, which Auston appreciates. Someone should take the lead, here, and it definitely won’t be him.

But he still doesn’t mention that he and his dad watch _Miracle_ together every Christmas.

Auston assumes they’re both secretly relieved when Mitch returns from the bar with drinks for the three of them and sits himself at Theo’s side, practically on his lap. A tension eases itself from Auston’s shoulder, barely noticeable.

“Sup?” Mitch asks, just loud enough to indicate the first drink’s hit him already. It makes Auston smile, kind of loose, because boyfriend or not, Mitch is still undeniably _Mitch_.

“Grey’s Anatomy,” Theo answers, arm snaking around Mitch’s waist.

Mitch smacks a hand down on the table in front of him, swaying into Theo’s side. He leans in across the table to face Auston. “Oh my _god_ , I tried showing him an episode of Grey’s once, and he spent the whole time just debunking the surgery stuff. It was hilarious. You know, like those videos on YouTube?”

“Uh-huh,” Auston answers, more amused by Mitch’s enthusiasm than the story itself. Auston, personally, finds it annoying when people make a point of correcting the things they see on TV or in movies. Like, he’d never do that with anything hockey-related. It just takes the fun out of everything.

 

-x-

 

Not two days later, they win again. It’s like they can’t seem to lose, this season.

The thing about playing at a high level is that the longer you succeed, the greater the expectation to keep it up. The pressure among the team to keep up their success is palpable, even if it’s simultaneously laced with a giddiness that’s shared by everyone in the locker room. The expectation is mounting squarely on Auston’s shoulders, and he feels it more keenly with every game. He’d be lying if he denied thriving off it; it’s the same pressure that forged his whole storybook journey to the National Hockey League.

But Auston can only do so much on the ice, and it’s impossible to bring that energy into post-game activities. If it were a Thursday or a Saturday, or if they had the morning off tomorrow, he’d feel more inclined to celebrate the win. It’s only Tuesday, though, and he’ll have to wake up at nine tomorrow for practice. He’s made it past the cusp of excited, where he’s now started to tread into anxiousness; that breath-holding kind of need to just maintain the status quo for a few more weeks, until the standings start carrying actual weight. Or, at least, until they’re within a wide berth of playoff disqualification.

The idea of his bed floats through his brain as he showers, and he packs up his things before most of the guys have even toweled off. He says a quick round of goodbyes before ducking out of the locker room, trudging down the hall while half-heartedly scanning through his notifications. When Theo darts out in front of Auston, he barely registers it in time to keep himself from colliding into him

“Hey, nice game!” Theo says. “You were great.” He steps aside to let Auston pass.

Auston digs his hands into his pockets, hiking his bag further up his shoulder. “Yeah, thanks. It’s always fun when we come back in the third.” He pauses, unsure of what else to really say. It’s not that he’s surprised that Theo’s right there waiting outside the locker room, but Auston just doesn’t have it in him to hold up his end of a proper conversation tonight. The awkward silence from the other night settles back over them, as though it never got dispelled.  “Mitch was great, too. First star,” he adds weakly. It’s obvious small talk, but they don’t really know each other well enough to say much beyond that, anyway.

Theo nods towards the locker room and peers at Auston through narrowed eyes. “He coming out any time soon?”

Auston sputters, taken aback. “I’m pretty sure you have to talk to him about that, man. That’s a pretty big decision, and it’s his to make and — ”

Theo laughs, tipping his head back. “ _No_ , I mean is he coming out of the locker room? Is he almost changed? We have dinner reservations.”

“Oh,” Auston says, blinking. And then, “It’s, like, eleven.”

Theo winks. “Observant.”

Auston wants to go home. So badly. Exhaustion is coiling around every muscle, and it feels heavy just to be standing upright. His shoulders are hunching, and he has to instruct himself to stand up with a straight spine like his mom used to. And Theo is just _looking_ at him, with this smile that’s just edging on smarmy, like there’s a joke between them that Auston’s not in on.

“Auston?”

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh,” Auston says. Mitch got the first star, and had spent some time hamming it up with Carlton, tossing pucks over the glass for adoring kids. Auston was in the shower before Mitch was even fully out of his gear. “Yeah, he should be out soon.” He doesn’t know why, but as he walks away, he gets the sudden urge to deck Theo in the face. It’s almost certainly the exhaustion gnawing at him from the inside out, making him almost deliriously irrational.

Auston practically speed-walks to the parking lot, even hits the door-close button on the elevator like a dick because he can’t be bothered to wait a second more. He’s almost cleared the vicinity, far enough into the parking lot that his car is in plain sight, when he hears a breathless, “ _Matty_!”

Auston turns around to see Mitch doing that white person half-jog across the parking lot, towing Theo along by the hand. Mitch has one pant leg stuck in the top of his sock, and he’s left three of his shirt buttons undone - whether intentional or not, Auston can’t quite tell.

“What’s up?”

“Just wanted to say good game,” Mitch says through thin breaths. “Bet you’re getting tired of hearing that, eh?”

Auston grins. “Yeah, it’s a real pain,” he intones. “But, uh, you too. Total fire.”

Mitch grins back, and he looks like he’s about to say something when Theo nudges him.

“Babe, I made those reservations…”

Mitch’s eyes brighten at the sound of Theo’s voice, and he looks utterly delighted. The new, love-sick look that he’s been wearing lately still seems a little bizarre to Auston, but he tamps down the weirdness that stirs in him and kicks the pavement aimlessly. “We have to go,” Mitch apologizes. “See you tomorrow, I guess?”

“Yup.” Auston waves, and continues on to his car while Theo guides Mitch in the opposite direction.

 

-x-

 

The more Auston thinks about it, the more he realizes there are a few things he doesn’t like about Theo. He finds himself listing them as he drifts off to sleep that night. They’re stupid, little things. Like how Theo calls Mitch _babe_ . How he relentlessly makes fun of Mitch’s acting in those commercials, even though there’s nothing that funny about it after repeating the joke for the third time. And the way he seems to sway just confidently enough that it comes across as arrogant. Even the way he just seems so _bemused_ by the fact that they’re professional hockey players. Not that Auston expects everyone in Toronto to kiss the ground they walk on, but this guy’s dating a star forward on the Leafs; he could stand to show a little more excitement or, at the very least, appreciation, right?

Not to mention, _Theo_ is just such a dumb, pretentious name.

They’re small enough issues, hardly the major problems that would throw up any red flags. It’s probably nitpicky of Auston to notice them in the first place. Why should he be the one to notice them, or care at all, when Mitch hasn’t? Besides, it’s hard to actively dislike a guy who’s studying to save people’s lives, and who makes Mitch so obviously happy.

And Mitch is so very, obviously, overwhelmingly happy. He talks about Theo with a dreamy sigh, like _he’s_ the reacher of the two. The other day, he referred to Theo as _the jackpot_. Sure, Mitch is his friend, but even Auston can tell how bogus that is.

Dating Theo has sparked subtle little changes in Mitch, too. The changes in Mitch aren’t as obvious as in some of the other guys who’ve recently found themselves in serious relationships. He hasn’t suddenly become a paragon of maturity and good decision-making, a voice of reason when things get to raucous in the locker room, nor has he abandoned all traces of his former self. But he carries himself differently. He holds himself with a different kind of confidence from before, the kind of confidence that probably comes with feeling like you’re not trying to impress anybody else, like you’ve already impressed someone enough to know your heart is safe so all that’s left is to just be yourself.

And, yes - Auston knows it’s shitty of him to be bothered by Mitch feeling good about himself. Can’t seem to help it, though.

He’s not a mushy guy, is the thing, but it’s usually fun to see his teammates happy and in love. Like, when Brownie started seeing that nurse he met during their last hospital visit and couldn’t stop blushing through all the guys’ incessant chirps. Or how Naz became such an uncontrollable sap as a newlywed, it was kind of adorable. Or how Auston loves spending time with Pat and Christina, seeing how in love they still are even after four kids and all those years together. Auston takes comfort in knowing that all their lives are stable, outside of the rink. It makes him strangely hopeful for his own future, even if that level of commitment seems out of reach, for the time being. That’s why it sits with him funny that his own best friend suddenly coupled up, and Auston feels nothing other than mild irritation. Misplaced irritation, probably. Even so, it racks him with guilt, because every time Mitch drifts off with that faraway, happy look in his eyes, a leaden weight settles in the pit of Auston’s stomach.

In practice and in games, none of this seems to matter. It should probably make Auston feel relieved. After so long of subtly hinting to Babs that they want to play together, it’s rewarding to see them kick so much ass, even if it’s just on the power play. On the bench, Mitch still leans all up in his space, shouts dumb observations that make Auston laugh, he still skates playful circles around Auston in warmups with that goofy grin of his -

They’re still friends, is the point.

It just _sucks_ that Auston has to keep reminding himself that. Every other variable is unchanged and accounted for, besides Theo, but it somehow feels like absolutely everything in his life has been flipped upside down. Like ever since this season started, they’ve been ever so slightly out of sync.

Theo just rubs Auston the wrong way, is all. Not all people are meant to get along instantly, if at all. It’s just part of life, and that’s fine. But, for Mitch’s sake, Auston wishes he could like Theo more. He wishes they could get along the way he gets along with Christina, and some of the other guys’ partners. There’s something about him, though, about the way he immediately integrated himself like he thought it would be seamless. Maybe it’s because he acts like he’s one of the guys, has since the first time he met everyone, when he’s fundamentally _not_ . And he can’t just, like, insert himself into the team by proxy, because it’s not _his_ team, it’s Mitch’s. It’s Auston’s.

“Seriously, he doesn’t bug you?”

Auston’s pretty limited in his choice of people who will listen to his bitching. Patty’s too removed, whether it’s because of his age or because he has four kids and doesn’t feel the need to keep up with team gossip, or because he’s, like, legitimately mature and tends to brush those things off. JT’s too new, still acclimating to the nuances of their team’s dynamics. Mo’s too reasonable, Gards is too unobservant, Naz is too ruthless, Freddie is too… _Freddie_.

Willy, luckily, has a petty side. Auston thought he’d be the best person to talk to about this, but —

“Meh, not really.”

Willy may be petty, but he’s also got a hundred different other things going on at the same time, so his investment in the bitching can only go so far. Auston accounted for this, though, which is why he’s bringing it up in front of Zach and Brownie as well.

Zach holds up his hand of cards with a sigh. “I thought you invited us here to play Go Fish.”

Go Fish happens to be the only card game whose rules Willy ever manages to  remember, and, by consequence, he is unfairly good at it.

Auston shifts, settling against the side of his bed. “I did,” he answers weakly.

Mitch, unsurprisingly, is roaming the halls of the hotel on a FaceTime call with Theo. He hardly ever hangs out in the room on roadies anymore, usually disappears quietly to spend some virtual time with his boyfriend. Auston doesn’t know where he gets the patience for it, but then again, Auston’s confused by many elements of Mitch’s relationship.

“Do you have any sixes?” Willy asks, draping himself backwards off the opposite bed, head listing close to Zach’s.

“Go fish,” Zach and Brownie say, in unison. If Zach’s noticed Willy’s dramatic invasion of his personal space, he hasn’t reacted. Auston snorts.

“He’s all… like, _perfect_ , you know? Like, he’s going to be a _surgeon_ and wants to work for _Doctors Without Borders_ and all that,” Auston continues, handing Willy his six of clubs. “It’s obnoxious.”

“I really don’t know what to tell you, bud,” Brownie says with a shrug. “I don’t think he’s trying to, like, upset you by being a doctor. Perfect people aren’t being perfect just to spite you.”

“Perfect people don’t _exist._ ” Zach laughs. “Theo is just super accomplished. And so are you, by the way.”

“And so are _you_ ,” Willy says, poking Zach’s shoulder. Zach flushes and Auston reshuffles his cards, ordering them according to house.

“I’m just saying,” Zach says, swatting at Willy as he bites back a grin, “if he’s good enough for Mitch, he should be good enough for us.”

Auston wonders aloud, “I mean, is anyone good enough for Mitch, though?” When Auston looks up, the guys are all giving him this strange _look_. Auston just shrugs. “What? It’s true. Mitch is a gem.”

“Yeah - ”

“I mean, sure. ”

“Mmhmm - ”

Auston drops it, then, with a feeling crawling up his spine like he’s gone ahead and said the wrong thing. By the time Mitch gets back from his FaceTime date, Willy has wiped the floor with all of them in Go Fish, and Auston has mostly let go of his irrational irritation with Theo.

Mostly.

 

-x-

 

It’s their first Saturday night off in three weeks, and Auston plans to make the most of it.

 _Plans_ is really the operative word, here, since by seven PM, he still finds himself lounging in front of the TV, having accomplished nothing all evening besides leveling up his Pokemon. The day got away from him, the way it tends to when he’s got an overwhelming supply of free time and nothing concrete to occupy it all. It was way easier to make, and consequently _have_ , plans back when there was someone he could always count on to be in the same boat. But now Auston has to figure out how to fill all that open time without a guaranteed open invitation to laze next to Mitch.

Auston’s exercising his patience, though. The honeymoon phase can only last so long. Eventually, Mitch will start to feel comfortable enough in his relationship that he’ll at least be able to spend one night out of a hundred with Auston. The newness of his thing with Theo will fade and he’ll allow himself to slide slowly back into old habits. And though he doesn’t know this for a fact, Auston feels pretty confident that it’ll happen this way, the way it does with everyone.

As if the universe were reading his mind, his phone suddenly starts vibrating with a call from Mitch.

“Hullo?” Auston answers. He’s been battling random trainers for what feels like hours, and his hands cramp around the controls of his Switch, even as he loosens his grip to be more attentive to the phone call.

“Are you busy?” Mitch says, instead of _hi_. It sounds like he’s somewhere loud, bass music and yelling in the background. Auston doesn’t remember him mentioning plans to attend a concert. He doesn’t even know if there’s anyone big in town tonight, off the top of his head.

“Uh, no,” Auston answers. He’s sprawled on the couch in his softest sweatpants, and hasn’t made the slightest move to change all afternoon. He had been toying with the idea of asking some of the guys to grab dinner in an hour or so, but hadn’t made any concrete moves. “Why? What’s up?”

Mitch must shift the phone from one ear to the other, because his voice goes in and out of range for a second. “So, long story short, Theo and I were supposed to chaperone his kid sister’s school dance - ”

“ _Actually_?” Auston asks, smile breaking out across his face. That’s kind of hilarious.

“Yes, _actually_ ,” Mitch hisses in response. “But the problem is, he got called into surgery, like, half an hour ago, and he can’t _not_ go, since he’s still a student, and I only read his text when I got here.”

“And you can’t just go home?” Auston guesses.

“Apparently, I’m like a _special chaperone_ that everybody wants to see.”

“VIP, nice,” Auston says, just to be a shithead.

Mitch ignores him. “Listen, you wouldn’t… like, do you think it would be chill if you…”

“If I what, Mitchy?”

Mitch blurts, “If you came here and helped me? I have no idea how to fend off middle schoolers.”

Auston shifts on the couch, leaning over to grab the remote so he can turn the TV off. He’s already making his way to closet to find a change of clothes, even as he chirps, “It shouldn’t be that hard, since you basically are one.”

“ _Auston_.”

“Okay, yeah. Text me the address. I’m coming.”

“Wear something sparkly, if you have,” Mitch says, before hanging up.

Perplexed, Auston rifles through his closet. He fishes out a pair of jeans and a bright shirt that he figures is _loud_ , even if it doesn’t quite sparkle. The only thing in his closet that even comes close to sparkling is a sequined fedora that Naz gave him as a joke last season that he just never bothered to throw out. Typing the address Mitch sent him into Waze, Auston rushes out the door and heads towards the parking garage.

It only takes him about twenty minutes to drive to the school in question, and Auston hopes Mitch hasn’t been torn to shreds by a bunch of thirteen-year-olds by the time he rolls up. The school gym’s got a back door that opens onto the parking lot, and it’s not difficult to identify that as the location of the dance. The door is slightly ajar and Auston can hear the music blaring even as he pulls up in his car. Bright lights bleed in through the crack in the door, setting a small wedge of concrete alight with technicolor. Auston slips in as casually as possible, scanning the room for Mitch. He’s easy enough to find, standing on the opposite end of the gym a foot and a half taller than the tallest kid in the room. If anybody recognizes him on his way over to Mitch, they’re either too shy or too wrapped up in their own world to care.

“I didn’t know who else to call,” Mitch says hurriedly, when Auston’s walking over to him.

“Marns, it’s fine,” he answers, and then sees what Mitch is _wearing_. He’s got on a pair of white linen pants and a mostly-unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt that looks entirely inappropriate for the month of October. Weirder still, he pulls it off.

“The theme is _Mamma Mia 2_ ,” Mitch explains, as a group of girls that look more like one collective sequin walks past them. “I went with the more, uh, low-key vibe.”

“I didn’t see it,” Auston admits. His mom and Breyana saw it this summer, but he turned down their offer to join them.

Mitch scoffs. “Tragic. Instant classic, bro.”

Auston just waves him off. “Well, I bet Willy’s pissed he’s not here.”

Mitch snickers, and Auston shrugs out of of his jacket, assuming his post next to Mitch. He’s not sure what chaperone duty at a middle school dance really entails, nowadays, but he has a feeling it’ll be an easy learn. He carefully reasons that he instantly agreed to do this only because it’s been weeks since he and Mitch have hung out just the two of them, and he’s taking what he can get, at this point. He’s a bit surprised that nobody seems to notice, or really care, that Toronto Maple Leaf chaperone Mitch has been joined by Toronto Maple Leaf chaperone Auston, given the large blue maple leaf painted on one wall of the gym. Maybe it’s because Mitch’s post is in the far corner of the gym, near the equipment closet rather than the high-activity areas like the snack table and the bleachers. The oblivion is still unusual.

“Do they get a lot of high-profile chaperones?” Auston asks, foot tapping to a song he doesn’t recognize.

“They get one picture and one autograph when it finishes at nine,” Mitch explains. “I think that means they’re backing off, for now.”

“These kids are getting two for the price of one. Kind of worked out that Theo bailed — ” Auston stops, realizing his mistake.

Mitch’s face falls. “Perks of dating a surgeon, I guess,” he grumbles.

Auston struggles for something to say to lighten the mood. “I mean, it’s kind of cute that he asked you to chaperone a… middle school dance, though, right?”

It doesn’t land, and Mitch wilts. “Sure. But it’s not like we have all the time in the world to do these kinds of things. Between our schedule and his school and work, I’d rather have just stayed home, you know?”

The juxtaposition between a dejected-looking Mitch venting about his boyfriend and the bright, happy atmosphere around them doesn’t sit right with Auston. He has a feeling that heartbreak and disappointment don’t really mingle with ABBA, anyway. A part of him also wishes he wasn’t the person Mitch is venting to, since Mitch isn’t even aware of Auston’s reservations about Theo. But he’s Mitch’s _person_ , and Mitch is his. Still. Even though he was Mitch’s backup plan, he’s still the first person Mitch thought to call, and Auston owes him _something_ for that.

“So,” Auston says after a moment, hoping to change the subject. “Is it our responsibility to break up kids who are dancing too close?”

Mitch snorts and points to a middle-aged woman in a long, flowing skirt with a flower crown balanced on her head, dancing with vigor in the middle of the crowd. “She’s the principal. I’m pretty sure nobody’s trying to grind with her around.”

Auston doesn’t know much ABBA, but he does recognize the next song the moment it queues up. Mitch is rapping his foot along to the beat, head bobbing gently. He may still be carrying a rain cloud above his head, but Auston can tell he’s holding back. Auston decides he’s done just indulging Mitch’s misery, and instead decides to make it his goal to get Mitch to laugh tonight. Or at least to crack a genuine smile.

“Come on,” Auston says, holding out his hand. “Let’s dance.”

Mitch takes a step back, eyeing Auston’s hand suspiciously. “Aus,” he says, voice caught between panic and laughter, “you know these kids have phones and wifi, don’t you?”

Auston shrugs. “Don’t care,” he replies. “No offense, but you got stood up to school a dance. Like hell if I’m gonna let you dance alone.”

Tentatively, Mitch takes Auston’s outstretched hand. “If this ends up on Twitter, you only have yourself to blame.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Auston says with a grin, leading Mitch into the crowd of fourteen-year-olds half-heartedly swaying to _Dancing Queen_.

Auston starts by holding Mitch’s hands, twirling him exaggeratedly before shimmying and shaking his hips. Mitch hesitates at first, but before long, he’s shedding his apprehension in favour of throwing himself about in ridiculous moves, laughing with delight for the whole length of the song. He sings along in his bad, cracking falsetto, and his genuine joy over the song attracts even the shyest-looking wallflowers into the fold of the dance floor. Auston thinks, even if he accomplishes nothing more tonight, nothing more in his entire life, he can be happy with this.

“You’re a terrible dancer,” Auston shouts over the sound of the music.

“I know,” Mitch answers, and he’s beaming, “but you’re worse.”

Auston probably couldn’t contain his smile if he wanted to. He must look like an absolute idiot, completely towering over everyone in the crowd, dancing to ABBA with a bunch of kids and Mitch.

“This is so ridiculous - ”

“This is ridiculous!”

They both shout at the same time. And Mitch, startled by the synchronicity, tips his head back with a loud laugh, exposing the long strip of his neck.

Beautiful, Auston thinks. He looks beautiful.

The thought hits Auston like a freight train, crashes into him with such force that he stumbles a little. It doesn’t make sense, mostly. Mitch’s laugh is always too big, no restraint, round and loud and honking. Not beautiful, not by any definition Auston’s aware of.

And yet -

This time, Auston shoves the thought away before it can fully materialize. Instead, he pushes his hair back with one hand. Somehow, in the span of a single song, his forehead has become slick with sweat; in fact, he’s uncomfortably warm all over. It’s just like being in a club, he reasons. Or, more accurately, like being back in middle school. Suddenly, he needs water.

When the song starts to fade out, Auston makes a move to inch towards the concessions table to buy something to drink. He expects another ABBA song to follow it, as per the night’s theme, but instead, the DJ replaces _Dancing Queen_ with the Cha Cha Slide, and is rewarded with a chorus of excited shrieks from the crowd.

“This is still a thing?” Auston asks, returning to Mitch’s side with two bottles of water. He did the Cha Cha Slide when _he_ was in middle school.

“Apparently!” Mitch answers, overcome with that same laughter as he cracks open his bottle and drinks half of it in two big gulps. Auston’s careful not to watch his bobbing Adam’s apple as he does so, and he tugs at his collar while looking in the opposite direction.

To probably no one’s surprise, Mitch is inhumanly good at the Cha Cha Slide. He knows all the moves by heart, visibly anticipates them all, and performs them with a smoothness and confidence that could only come from having done it a thousand times. The best part of the whole thing is how serious his face is, trained into perfect concentration like he’s performing an gymnastic floor routine and not a dance that literally instructs you on what moves come next. Auston almost pulls out his phone to snap a video of it for the group chat, but he thinks better of it, for some reason. Not that Mitch would mind, probably, but there’s something kind of nice about this being a moment that’s just for them.

At nine, Theo’s sister Kelly and her friends come to take pictures with them, and she tells Mitch she’s getting a lift back home with her friend’s parents. It’s a little awkward, because Mitch doesn’t seem sure if he’s supposed to be her guardian in this situation, but he lets her go and mentions he’ll text Theo about it. A few of the other chaperones insist they don’t have to stay to help clean up, but they do, anyway, sorting the empties on the snack table into recyclables and non-recyclables and picking up remnant streamers from the ground. Someone asks them to sign a napkin, and they do.

“Is it weird that I feel super old now?” Auston asks, as they make their way back to their cars.

“Nope, I was totally unprepared for that, too,” Mitch replies, fishing his keys out of his back pocket. Despite throwing on a jacket, he still looks ridiculously underdressed for the weather. After a pause, he nudges his shoulder against Auston’s. “Thanks, eh?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Auston answers automatically. “I wasn’t doing anything, anyway.”

“Yeah, but you shouldn’t have had to do this. Kelly’s not your kid sister.”

“I also don’t have an important job with a lot of overtime.” Auston points out. It wouldn’t be right to make Mitch feel worse about Theo bailing. Instead, he tries to keep the mood between them as light as he can and focuses on his feet.

“Well, you kind of do,” Mitch replies with a smile.

Auston grins. They get to Mitch’s car first, and, despite driving separately all season, it still feels weird not to be sharing a ride. Mitch rocks back on his heels, and he looks like he wants to say something else. He must change his mind, though, opting instead to look at Auston. It’s a slightly thoughtful, slightly calculating look, and Auston doesn’t cower under it. He expects something else, but after another moment, nothing comes of it, other than a soft, “Goodnight, Auston.”

Auston smiles again, and he lifts his hand up in a wave as he makes his way over to his own car, parked three spots down. “Goodnight, Mitch.”

 

-x-

 

Things don’t get back to normal after that, but they’re better. When Mitch catches Auston’s eye from across the locker room at practice the next morning, Auston shimmies his shoulders. Nobody else seems to notice, but it makes Mitch dissolve into a familiar laugh. Auston’s chest aches with it, a little — how much he missed Mitch’s laugh. Or, how much he just missed _Mitch_ , in general. Kind of dumb, since they see each other five or six days a week, and yet something in Auston feels looser, lighter because of it.

 

-x-

 

They’re in town for three more days before flying out to the West Coast for a two week stint. It’s one of those mundane, not-quite lulls in their schedule. Half the time will be spent in practice, anyway, so it hardly counts as a break, even if they’ve got a few days before their next game. Auston spends the second of those three days catching up on errands, grocery shopping with a cap pulled low over his eyes even though it hardly disguises him from people with discerning eyes. He putters around the Whole Foods anyway, wandering down each aisle, checking over his shoulder before throwing a box of organic frozen chicken wings into his cart, as though the team nutritionist is lurking behind him. It’s fun, kind of. He’s listening to music, tapping beats against the handle of his cart, and taking his time because, realistically, he doesn’t have a whole lot else to do today. That’s why it catches him off guard, when his music suddenly cuts out and is replaced by the generic ringtone of his phone.

The fact that it’s Mitch calling him is another story entirely.

“Hey, are you around?” Mitch asks, without waiting for a response. “I’m kind of in your lobby, but I figured I’d double check before I, like, just come up unannounced.”

It would be a bald-faced lie for Auston to say he’s not relieved that Mitch is calling to hang out.

He’s already making his way to the checkout while he answers, “No, yeah, I’m at the grocery store, but I’m coming back.”

“Oh,” Mitch says, sounding taken aback. “I don’t wanna make you —”

“No, no, I’m done, anyway.” He doesn’t think twice before rushing his way through the self-checkout, not even bothering to do a decent job of packing his bag the way he typically does.

His condo is only a ten minute walk from the grocery store, and when he arrives in the lobby, Mitch is lounging on one of the plush leather chairs, staring at his phone.

“Hey,” Mitch says, as Auston approaches. His smile is a tentative, small thing that Auston kind of wants to tug on, just to make it loose.

“Shall we?” Auston says, nodding towards the elevators, and Mitch leaps up to follow him.

“Theo’s at a conference,” Mitch explains, shuffling his feet and keeping a wide berth. “Which, like, _sucks_ , since we’re leaving for two weeks and I barely saw him this weekend.”

“Yeah,” Auston answers, with as much sympathy as he can infuse into his voice. He feels for Mitch, hates seeing him like a deflated balloon, but for some reason, he can’t make himself sound as genuinely sympathetic as he wants to. “That must suck.”

Mitch just shrugs.

When they up get to Auston’s place, Mitch kicks off his shoes and carefully arranges them by the door while Auston trudges into the kitchen to unpack his groceries.

“Hungry?” he calls, as Mitch materializes in the doorway.

“Sure,” Mitch replies, airy. He hovers in the threshold for a moment before taking a few steps deeper into the kitchen, folding his arms across his chest.

Auston was going to save the wings for their next break, when it counts less that he relaxes his diet a little, but he opens the box and lays them on a baking sheet before even unloading the rest of his groceries. They’re Mitch’s favourite flavor, anyway. Honey garlic. Auston wonders when that kind of became his favourite flavor, too.

It’s quiet while they wait for the wings to heat up. Auston leans back, gripping the counter behind him, chews his bottom lip absently. Silence isn’t usually a problem for them. It’s not tense, exactly, but it feels like things have shrunk back to the way they were before the dance, all of a sudden. There’s a care to all of Mitch’s movements, like he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be doing. Auston wants to tell him to just drop it and stop worrying, but that doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.

“You want a beer?” Auston asks, finally. Another cheat item that he was going to save for next time. Offers, anyway.

Mitch’s eyes widen a fraction, but he says, “Sure, why not?” He hauls himself up on the counter opposite to Auston, leaning a little so they’re eye-level. Kicks his legs, because Theo might think he’s got a handle on Mitch, but the Marns Auston’s accustomed to is very much a tall child.

Auston digs two beers out of the pack and twists off the caps with the crook of his elbow. Leo taught him that, last year; a random party trick he’s never thought to use until now. It makes Mitch’s eyebrows fly up, so Auston counts it as a handy trick, after all. When Auston hands him the bottle, their fingertips bump for a split second, and Auston is struck by how soft they are.

So much about Mitch is soft. Mitch is soft in a game that demands he be the exact opposite, that necessitates calluses and violence, and not dancing to ABBA while bathed in a pink glow. It makes Auston’s chest weirdly tight to think that this is who Mitch _is_. It’s who he’s always been, to Auston, and that much hasn’t changed. But Mitch is also so different, in hundreds of infinitesimal ways, and has been all season. He holds himself differently, taller, and speaks carefully as though he’s trying to be more mindful about what he says and how he says it. Even when he’s being wild and loud and _Mitch,_  there’s almost a prudence behind everything he does, where there wasn’t before. It’s not a bad change, Auston reasons. Mostly it’s a stepping stone towards, like, maturity or whatever the fuck, but the challenge is in the quiet moments when Auston feels like he’s suddenly a million miles behind with no hope of catching up in time. And, dance notwithstanding, looking at Mitch now, in his kitchen, still feels like grasping at straws.

Auston mimics Mitch’s move and hauls himself up onto the countertop opposite Mitch. It defeats the initial purpose, probably, because they’re back to their usual different sightlines. He takes a slow pull of the beer and wishes it were something stronger.

“No, dude, come on.” Mitch scoffs. “We have to, like, toast first.”

Auston snorts. “Kay,” he agrees gently. “What are we toasting?”

Mitch considers this for a beat. “To bros before hoes,” he declares, pushing his bottle up into the space between them.

“You sure about that one, bud?” Auston asks, amused.

“Always,” Mitch answers with a solemn nod, clapping his other hand across his chest.

Auston shrugs and clinks his bottle against Mitch’s. And just like that, things feel like they’re settling back into place. What they’ve been doing these past few weeks reminds Auston of learning to ride a bike without training wheels - with no sense of equilibrium, listing too far to one side only to drift off to the other. Wobbly, but eventually finding a balance.

 

-x-

 

The wings last a grand total of ten minutes.

“There aren’t nearly enough of those things in a box,” Mitch says, picking at the remaining bits of skin on his final chicken wing. He’s balancing his plate on one thigh, and it’s a miracle the sauce hasn’t been displaced anywhere besides its general surface.

Auston’s own wreckage was equally self-contained, fortunately for his couch. His fingers slip over the beer bottle in his hand as he brings it to his lips, leaving greasy prints on the glass. He smirks indulgently as Mitch continues.

“It’s like, they _know_ nobody ever only eats twelve. Why not just put _more_ in the box?” He sighs and wipes his hand on a piece of paper towel before tipping his head back to rest on the arm of Auston’s sofa.

Auston leans forward to rest his elbows on his thighs, tracking Mitch’s movements slowly. “You wanna order a pizza or something?” Might as well write tonight off completely, at this point.

It still feels like a huge act of rebellion when Mitch’s head snaps back up and he says, “ _Hell_ yes.”

The sun sets over Toronto as they continue to eat utter garbage, like they’re just two ordinary twenty-one year olds. They might regret it tomorrow morning when Babs runs skating drills, but for now, that’s the farthest thing from Auston’s mind. The sky catches on fire beyond the windows, engulfing Auston’s living room in rosy pink light - the kind that makes everything feel more, more significant and meaningful.

Among the rest of their indulgence, they end up finishing the six-pack Auston bought. It’s not enough to make Auston feel that much, but Mitch is a reluctant light-weight. Still, he gets enough of a buzz to make him warm all over and think it’s hilarious when Mitch tips his head against Auston’s and starts taking selfies of them with the ridiculous Snapchat filters. Them as ducks, them as little angels, them with hearts around their heads. Mitch sends the snaps to a handful of people and Auston screenshots every one.

Mitch eventually calls an Uber to take him home, the exhaustion pressing down on both of them, combined with the bleak reality of early morning practice guiding him as he orders the cab with lazy taps on his phone.

Once Mitch is gone, and Auston’s cleared away most of the traces of their cheat night, he feels lonelier than he has in a month, in a year, in the past two seasons. He shouldn’t, he knows. He just spent hours with Mitch, feeling almost as if things were how they used to be. Made him feel shiny.

But it weighs on Auston, too heavy, that he was the second choice. It’s not fair of him, knows it and he knows it and he knows it, as many times as he’s told himself ever since Theo entered the picture. He never used to be one of those people who’d get salty when one of his friends started seeing someone, started spending all their time with them. Part of him feels like he _could_ even be happy for Mitch, if he weren’t so confused by all the too-bright emotions consuming him, unfamiliar and awkward, sticking to his ribs and maneuvering into spaces they don’t fit. The sinking sensation that it’s _jealousy_ that’s been colouring his moods in grey. He _wants_ to be happy for Mitch, to be able to chirp him about being in love, about Theo being too good for him, to ask if Theo’s got any single surgeon friends he could set Auston up with, or at least joke about it. He even wants to like Theo, the way all the other guys seem to.

He just —

Mitch is his person. And he’s starting to miss being Mitch’s.

Auston feels himself hollow out, overcome with a loneliness he can’t quite name. It’s like he has to squint to even look at the reality that is slowly unfolding and revealing itself to him, that this feeling isn’t going away any time soon. Especially if a whole night, rare and wonderful, wasn’t enough to quell the thrumming under his skin. Telling Mitch is out of the question, obviously. Moving past this feels almost equally impossible.

 

-x-

 

Their games in the West are more successful than not. They cream the Canucks, and just edge out the Flames in a 3-2 victory.

The Cup contention buzz gets louder just as the booing does, the thousands of voices hollering unbridled malice at them wherever they go. Winning at home is like they’re completely untouchable, like they own Toronto. Winning away feels like they’re conquerors. It can be grueling, when there’s a crowd of thousands of people booing you whenever you come even remotely close to touching the puck, but it’s all the more satisfying when you score. When you _win._

Consequently, the floor they occupy in their hotel is loud with the victory high. A group of guys have congregated in Mo’s room, hollering and playing stupid drinking games before choosing a bar to descend on. Mo thinks they should Yelp something, but Travis insists he remembers a few good bars nearby from the last time they were in Calgary. The debate is loud, and sides form quickly. Typically, Mitch would be in the middle of the action, but tonight, he’s nowhere to be found. He’s not answering Auston’s texts, either. That’s not such a strange thing, these days, since it usually means he’s on the phone with Theo or something, but tonight, Auston decides to go looking for him, just in case.

His intuition must have been onto something, after all, because after checking the pool area and two empty conference rooms, he finds Mitch curled up on a couch in the hotel’s lobby.

“Uh, Marns?”

Mitch lifts his head, but his face is blank, cheeks red and eyes swollen. He’s sitting with his feet tucked underneath him, draped in an oversized hoodie as though hoping it will conceal him from the the rest of the lobby.

“Everything okay?” Auston tries, slowly walking over. He’s not worried about startling Mitch, or anything, but there’s something delicate in the air between them, and he’s afraid of shattering it.

At first, Mitch just shakes his head in response to Auston’s question. After a heartbeat, though, he pinches the bridge of his nose, pulling his knees up in front of him and resting his face against them. “It’s just hard, sometimes,” he says. “The distance.”

“Cause we’re always travelling?” Auston guesses. He carefully sits down on the chair opposite him. His pants slide against the fabric, not enough traction to find a comfortable position.

“Yup.” Mitch huffs, sounding utterly exhausted. “It’s stupid,” he says, after another pause. “We knew it was going to be like this, that it wasn’t going to be as easy as it was in the summer. Because he’s, like, always doing doctor stuff and we’ve always got team stuff. But it’s still so _hard_ , cause we never see each other.” He looks up at Auston, exhaustion and sadness written all over his face, “Isn’t that lame?”

“No,” Auston answers immediately. “You’re...he’s your boyfriend, of course you want to spend time with him.”

“Yeah, and then we have a stupid fight about our schedules and he doesn’t even wanna FaceTime.”

Auston doesn’t have much to say to that, so he reaches out to place a hand on one of Mitch’s knees. He hates that he thinks so much about the movement.

Mitch rubs his eye. He’s got the sleeves of the sweater pulled down over his hands so that only the tips of his fingers are visible, and it’s an insane thing to fixate on, because Mitch isn’t small by any means, but the sweater almost dwarfs him. Auston doesn’t understand why he finds himself having such a difficult time looking at him. He darts his eyes away too late, and notices the _34_ embroidered on Mitch’s hoodie, and he registers the significance even as he feigns a shallow cough. The sight makes his heart clench - a sudden vice grip around all his organs. He doesn’t know when Mitch even would’ve swiped that from him, not that it matters, but.

Auston doesn’t really know what to do, but he lets himself look at Mitch again. It’s a mistake, because all he can do is fixate on the number on Mitch’s sweater. Auston’s sweater, technically. It plays weird notes in his mind.

“On the bright side,” Auston says, breaking the silence, “we won tonight, you got two points, and we don’t fly out until nine tomorrow. _So…_ ” he lets his voice trail, as though that will somehow guide Mitch to the conclusion that the best way to tackle his relationship problems is to drown them in cheap Albertan liquor. Auston is, historically, under-equipped to deal with heartbreak. His own in particular, but others’ too, by extension. And, besides, there is unfortunately a limit to how many feelings he and Mitch have shared with one another. Heartbreak over getting knocked out of the playoffs is different from fighting with a significant other, and until now, they haven’t had the pleasure of this kind of emotional exchange.

“I don’t know if I can go out tonight, Aus. I might just go to bed.” Mitch answers.

It’s one of those moments Auston won’t remember, later on. One of those split-second ideas that will decide a lot for him, in retrospect, butterfly wings sweeping open a thousand different side-effects, seemingly shaping his future in ways he can’t even imagine right now, in this stupid hotel lobby.

“So don’t go out,” Auston says, automatic, feeling the gears in his brain suddenly shift his instinct from getting Mitch plastered as a way to feel better to making sure Mitch just has a good time while they hang out at the hotel.

Mitch looks up. There are still traces of his fight with Theo all over his face — tears that have dried into slick, shiny tracks on his cheeks, blue eyes tired and bloodshot, hair falling limply onto his forehead. But Auston sees the clarity in his eyes, despite it all.

“I brought my Switch. We can just, like, play Mario Kart or something, yeah?” Auston continues, and it’s easy to suggest in a way that it wouldn’t be if Mitch were anyone else.

Mitch breathes a ghost of a smile, something like relief slowly prying the tension from between his shoulders. When Auston stands up, Mitch does, too, and they make their way to the elevator bank together in silence. They bump into Mo when the doors slide open on their floor.

“We’re not coming out,” Auston says.

“Yeah, no worries,” Mo answers, with an understanding nod. He won’t pry or insist they go out, Auston knows, and he gives Mo a salute as he continues down the hallway to the ice machine while Auston and Mitch head to their room.

Back in their room, Mitch sits himself cross-legged on his bed while Auston digs his Switch out of his duffel. He slides off the ends and passes a controller to Mitch.

“Thanks, eh?” Mitch says, accepting it easily and feeling around the buttons. “You could’ve gone out.”

“No, I couldn’t,” Auston answers. “No way you’re doing this alone.”

Mitch snorts. “I feel so dramatic.”

“Yeah? You better hope that makes you better at Mario Kart, because I’m gonna wipe the _floor_ with you.”

“What?!” Mitch demands, all faux-indignant. “ _No chance_.”

They don’t even bother hooking it up to the TV. Auston settles at the foot of Mitch’s bed and selects his usual lineup of Yoshi and Toad, while Mitch opts for Bowser and Donkey Kong at first, with a last minute swap of Bowser for Peach.

“Because I like her bike,” Mitch explains.

“I didn’t say anything,” Auston replies, biting back a chirp.

Despite his goading, Auston doesn’t quite wipe the floor with him. Mitch is much more skilled at Mario Kart, after the _decades of practice_ he literally never shuts up about whenever they play. When he wins three in a row, his real smile starts to re-emerge.

“Why do you suck so bad at this?” Mitch asks, as they start up another round.

“Shut up,” Auston answers. “You’re just, like, superhuman, that’s all.”

“Well, _duh,_ ” Mitch says, and he leans over then to rustle Auston’s hair. The movement leaves Auston feeling a little lightheaded.

Auston tries to focus on the track, but his head is tingling like he just watched a hundred ASMR videos. It doesn’t help that Mitch’s primary tactic involves throwing his body about in every which direction, as though that’s how he’s guiding his players. He leans so far to the left that he crashes into Auston, knocking the controller out of his hand and onto the ground.

“Interference!” Auston shouts, scrambling to pick the joycon off the floor. Mitch just barks an unapologetic laugh, and when he wins yet another round, and then another, easing back into his smile as he does so, Auston doesn’t even complain.

“I don’t know what to tell you, man. You picked the wrong fight,” Mitch calls later with a laugh, while Auston’s brushing his teeth.

“I’ll redeem myself,” Auston shouts back, after spitting. It’s hard to brush his teeth when he can’t seem to wipe the smile off his face. Mitch’s lighthearted chirping, his dorky laugh, Auston helped get those back tonight, and he feels good about it.

Even if it meant getting chirped within an inch of his life after each crushing defeat. Auston doesn’t mind much, though. He could probably spend the rest of his life being chirped by Mitch Marner, and he doesn’t think he’d complain for a second.

Which —

Is kind of a weird thought to have. Weirder still when he realizes it’s entirely true.

 

-x-

 

For a few days after that, things are steady. They lose in OT to the Oilers, and Auston’s head starts to get fuzzy with the cumulation of takeoffs and landings, but things are okay. Mitch doesn’t bring Theo up at all, which Auston figures is probably better than him being devastated over another fight.

The image of finding Mitch alone in a cold, empty hotel lobby with tear tracks on his cheeks won’t leave Auston’s mind. He knows couples fight, but that kind of devastation is just so discordant from Mitch’s usual self. It sticks to Auston weird, twists this churning ache in the pit of him. He kind of wants to punch Theo in his perfect teeth.

It comes to a head in Winnipeg, when Mitch isolates himself in the bathroom for an angry phone call while Auston’s trying to shake off the stiffness from their flight. Of course, Auston can’t decompress successfully with Mitch actually _yelling_ ten feet away, so he takes the opportunity to go visit Willy in his room.

Willy looks completely unperturbed by Auston’s presence on his doorstep.

“Marns is fighting with Theo,” Auston explains, flopping back on Zach’s bed, “ _again_.”

Willy slides next to him, propping an elbow up to rest his chin in his hand. “Yeah? I haven’t heard him talk about Theo in a while.” He raises an eyebrow at Auston. “Trouble in paradise?”

Auston rolls his eyes. “That’s an understatement.”

“I mean, couples fight. It’s what happens.” Willy says with a shrug.

“I dunno,” Auston answers. “From what Mitchy’s told me, it doesn’t sound good. You know he, like, _blames_ Mitch for being away so often? As if he doesn’t get that it’s our _job_.” Auston huffs, indignant. It’s a bullshit fight to pick, since Theo knew what he was getting into when he started dating a professional athlete, and to _begrudge_ Mitch of that is completely ridiculous, in Auston’s opinion. Especially since they’re both beholden to busy schedules.

“You sound invested,” Willy observes. He sounds nonchalant, but Auston feels unsettled under the weight of his gaze. It’s sharp. Intense.

“Well, it’s just getting dumb at this point. Because… like, they _fight_ and it still seems like Mitch isn’t going to - ”

Willy rolls his eyes. “What? Break up with him over it?”

Auston throws his hands in the air with an exasperated sigh. “Well, _yeah_.” He hasn’t thought about the potential of them breaking up too much before, but now that it’s out there, he can’t will himself to take back the sentiment.

Willy makes a frustrated noise as he drags a hand over his eyes. “You ever think about _why_ you even care so much about this at all?” he asks, before digging his phone out of his pocket. He rolls onto his stomach without looking up from his phone. Based on the speed of his fingers, he must be texting somebody, and Auston feels mildly irritated that his attention is so obviously divided when Auston’s kind of having a crisis, here.

Auston suddenly can’t be lying in bed. It’s too comfortable and he feels like he’s sinking into it, for some reason. He needs to flush out this frustration somewhere more rigid. He bolts up and moves himself to the office chair by the desk.

“Mitch is your friend, too. Don’t you care if he’s in a happy relationship or not?” Auston tries.

“Well, _yeah_ , but not the way you do. You’re, like, _super_ invested.”

It sounds like Willy’s trying to inject some other meaning into his words, but Auston doesn’t really have the patience to decipher his hidden messages tonight. _Super invested_? Of course he is. Before Mitch was with Theo, Mitch was Auston’s best friend. On some level, he still is, probably. Mitch is… he’s a gem. Nice to everybody, dumb as a fucking rock about some things but weirdly intuitive with others. Auston never bothered to imagine what it would be like once Mitch finally started dating anybody, because in his mind, nobody even comes close to Mitch’s level.

Maybe that means he wishes he could pry the hands of time apart for a little while, just to make their moment together last a little longer sometimes. And, yeah, the thought of Mitch with Theo kind of makes Auston’s stomach turn, and some days, he feels like he could just lose himself in the way Mitch’s eyes are so perfectly blue they reflect every gleam of light and —

“Oh, _shit_.”

Willy looks up from his phone, clearly bored. “Yeah, dude.”

“I’m…” He doesn’t know what he is. “What the fuck.”

The pit of his stomach drops to the floor then, hits the ground so that all Auston hears is the rush, the insistent thrum of his heartbeat in his eardrums. Willy always insists on turning on all the little lamps in the room. Auston thinks it has something to do with his Swedish sensitivity to ambience, but right now, he feels far too exposed under all the lights.

Finally, Willy sets his phone aside and sits up, leaning back against the pillows. “I wasn’t gonna say anything, but like —”

Auston’s head snaps up. “But _what_?”

Willy’s voice startles him as it rings clear in the silence, and it’s only then that Auston notices his hands are trembling. “You’re not subtle. And you’re, like, so clearly in love with Marns it’s a bit painful to watch.” Willy’s voice is airy, as though he thinks he’s delivering a thin joke.

Something in the air shifts, then. It must, because Auston suddenly can’t breathe. Willy looks sympathetic but unaffected, and it’s so unfair that he can be completely fine while Auston feels like his lungs are slowly filling up with lead.

“I’m… _what_?”

Willy’s more perceptive than he lets on; Auston knows after two and a half seasons together. But there’s no way Willy could read that when Auston himself still isn’t quite sure exactly what it is he feels for Mitch. There’s just no way.

Willy seems to sober up, then, knowing smile sliding into a grimace. “Shit, dude, were you really that, like, unaware?”

Maybe. Maybe he was.

But then again, in a much more realistic sense, maybe he wasn’t.

All Auston can manage to say at this moment is, “Does he know?” His airways feel impossibly tight, like his breath is being siphoned in tiny doses.

Willy looks at him with cautious, sympathetic eyes and shakes his head. “No, I’m pretty sure he’s as oblivious as you.”

Auston’s about to answer when suddenly, there’s a beeping sound as the door unlocks, and Zach walks into the room.

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” Zach asks apologetically, evidently sensing the mood.

Willy’s eyes light up. “No!” he says, just as Auston says, “ _Yes_.”

Zach looks between the two of them before saying, “I can come back later.”

“No, you can stay —”

“Yeah, that would be cool —”

Again, Willy and Auston speak at the same time. Auston glares at Willy, but Willy’s long since become immune, and he gestures for Zach to come join them. Zach perches himself hesitantly at the foot of Willy’s bed, and Willy instantly flops back so he can flail in Zach’s general direction. Zach smiles at him indulgently and Auston spins around in the office chair so he doesn’t have to look at anything for too long.

 

-x-

 

The universe doesn’t even give him five minutes to process this on his own. On his way back from Willy and Zach’s room, Auston spies Mitch walking in his direction, padding down the hallway in his slippers. Mitch brightens when he notices Auston, and it plays weird notes in Auston’s mind.

“Patty’s never seen _Peaky Blinders_ so I was gonna show him,” Mitch explains. Other than slightly swollen eyes, he looks like he’s recovered from the earlier screaming match that was apparently so warranted he didn’t even bother hiding it from Auston. Which Auston still can’t decide is a good or bad thing. “Wanna come?” He’s got his MacBook tucked under his forearm, like he’s carrying a textbook, and he taps it a few times. His fingertips make a tinny sound against the aluminum.

Auston personally can’t think of a worse way to spend his time right now than knocking knees with Mitch on Patty’s king sized bed in dim lamplight. Quelling the nervous trill that starts run through him, he says, “Nah, I’m kind of tired. Think I’ll sit this one out.”

“Okay…” Mitch says slowly. Auston can’t tell if he’s confused or disappointed; his voice sounds a little far off. Or maybe that’s just Auston’s imagination. Either way, he takes the ensuing silence as a queue to continue down the hallway. He has to flex his hands, squeezing his fingernails against his palms to exert some arbitrary control on his surroundings.

“Have fun though,” Auston calls, managing a glance over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Mitch answers, again with the far away voice.

When Auston gets back to the room, he closes the door behind him and sinks to the ground. Mitch left a lamp on, and he remembered to close the curtains, which Auston always gives him shit for. It’s an ordinary night, by every other measure.

Nothing has changed. Mitch’s toiletry bag is still open on the bathroom counter, its contents strewn about. His toothbrush is balanced over the sink next to Auston’s, the lid of his hair pomade is only half-screwed on. If Auston were a detective gathering clues to enlighten himself on the moment things changed, to pinpoint the difference between feeling the way he ordinarily does towards Mitch and this new hot air balloon of feelings swelling in his chest, it would be impossible to distinguish. But maybe that’s Auston’s whole problem. The lines between friendly teammates, friendly bros, and… whatever else often just get blurred to the point of nonexistence. With them, it’s like there is no line. There can’t have ever been a line, not one that Auston was ever aware of, at least. If there was, he would have cautiously navigated it. He would have stuck to his own fucking side of it.

But if there’s no line, that may be even worse, because it means Auston’s been swimming aimlessly in his feelings from day one, without a lifeline in sight.

Auston feels helpless, as he looks around the room they share that, just hours ago, seemed so average that it was nearly inconsequential. Eventually, he decides there’s nothing more he can do tonight besides go to bed.

 

-x-

 

Navigating an epiphany of that magnitude proves to be some, like, Herculean task.

By the time they get back home, Auston hardly feels better equipped to face his new reality. He had hoped the plane ride would be an adequate distraction, and resolved to sandwich himself between the window and Willy for the entire length of the flight. Generously, Willy let him, and conceded to essentially shield Auston from Mitch, or anyone else who might notice he was in the middle of a crisis. But even the four hours at a high altitude did nothing to clear Auston’s mind. He was planning on watching a movie, but the first movie Netflix recommended was _Mamma Mia 2: Here We Go Again_ , and that did nothing but send Auston into a vicious tailspin.  

The rooming situation complicates everything; that much was immediately clear last night. Mitch got back from Patty’s just after midnight, and Auston had desperately feigned sleep when he heard the door unlock. He felt hyper-aware of his body and each of its tiny movements beneath the covers, even the rise and fall of his chest while he simulated steady breathing.

Auston doesn’t have the first idea about what to do with all the thoughts colliding at light-speed in his head. His synapses fire relentlessly with memories of every stupidly exposing thing he’s ever said, every time he’s ever allowed himself to gaze at Mitch a little too long. He feels like a he just inherited a whole new set of problems, with no discernible solution. He’s suddenly hyper-aware of the way he let his feelings bleed lazily, before. The way he didn’t bother fencing them in, wore them right on his fucking sleeve so even _Willy_ thought he was being obvious. God forbid anyone else on the team, or Theo, or _Mitch_ also read right through him.

Retroactive panic is only one of his new problems. The very present, tangible panic is another.

Auston’s never been in love before, but he has the feeling it’s not supposed to feel so soul-crushing.

And then, Auston’s barely had a day to acknowledge the fact that he loves Mitch before he realizes there’s a whole other new emotion he has, and has to recognize.

Jealousy. And not just the friend kind.

Looking back, it maybe wasn’t the most incredibly well-concealed jealousy, if he’s being honest. He doesn’t particularly like it, nor is he particularly good at it. He doesn’t know if he should even want to be good at it, either. Maybe he should want to be good at hiding it, or good at getting over it, but it turns out he’s neither of those.

And Auston was fine with being alone before, but now it just feels like his loneliness is so stark and barren by comparison. He doesn’t even know if he wants to, like, date Mitch now. All he knows is that it suddenly makes sense why the thought and sight of Mitch make him want to take a lap around Toronto, hide under his bed, and stand on a pedestal under a spotlight all at once.

Besides, would he even stand a fucking chance if Mitch had even the slightest idea of how Auston feels? Probably not. Auston would forever be the guy who only realized he’s in love with his best friend when he got a boyfriend, which would make him not only pathetic but also an idiot. The total package.

And yet, he starts to be unable to even be around Mitch without wanting to, like, lay himself bare at his feet. They say that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, in the exact same fashion but expecting a different result, so maybe Auston’s going a little crazy and maybe that’s his own fault, here. He goes to practice, he goes to games. Occasionally, he’ll meet Mitch’s eye. Each time, a part of him expects to hear Marns tell him - to his face - that he’s right about everything, that Theo really isn’t all that and that Mitch can do a thousand times better. And maybe the disappointment cuts deeper each time Auston’s hopes are upset, but that’s probably the part where the insanity comes into play.

“Auston? Buddy.”

There’s a hand waving in front of his face. It’s attached to Mitch’s body. Auston startles. “Huh? What’s up?” he says.

“I just asked you how your night was.”

And Auston can’t quite tell him the truth. Can’t quite tell him a lot of things, really. So he just mumbles, “Yeah, fine,” and keeps lacing up his skates.

He can’t keep this up, though. He knows it’s dangerous. He’s going to wind up leaning in too close, or forgetting where the line between friendly touching and suggestive touching has been drawn. Or forgetting if a line has ever been drawn for them, at all, and he’s just been so unaware of the lack of line that he never even realized the very real need for a line in the first place.

It’s an exhausting train of thought.

 

-x-

 

If Auston thought Theo was insufferable before his epiphany, it’s about a thousand times worse now.

All the small, irrefutably annoying things about him collide into one douchebag package, and Auston can barely look at the guy without scowling. He forced himself to join the guys after their slim win, partly because he’s apparently become a masochist, partly because a voice in his head keeps insisting the only way out of his feelings is _through_.

Despite being having been back home for a while, something is wrong tonight. Mitch holds himself with a restraint that’s not natural, a calculated composure despite the loud bar and otherwise jovial friends. Theo keeps his arm tight around Mitch’s shoulders, and he’s wearing a smug look that Auston really just wants to knock off his stupid face. When he’s not taking sips of his drink, Auston has to keep flexing his hands against his thighs under the table so that he doesn’t accidentally form them into fists, or grip his glass too tight. Fuck the voice in his head; he was a dumbass to even give it credence.

“I need another drink,” Auston announces, standing up abruptly and nearly knocking his chair to the ground. “Anyone else?”

Everybody at the table is good on drinks for the time being. Auston’s about to turn around and head towards the bar when Mitch stops him.

“Wait,” he says, and tips the rest of his drink back in two swift gulps. “I’ll come.” He squeezes his way out of the booth and follows Auston away from their group.

“What’s up with you two?” Auston asks, after they place their order with the bartender. He tries - hand to god he _tries_ \- to sound casual, but he hears the accusatory tone slip through as the words leave his mouth.

Mitch bristles, and keeps watching the bartender as she prepares their drinks. “What do you mean?”

“You seem off,” Auston explains, steamrolling over the voice in his head that pops up again to beg him to just drop it and never talk to Mitch about Theo for as long as he lives. “You fighting still?”

Finally, Mitch turns to face him. “What?”

“It’s just…” Auston starts, grasping for the words. Now that he’s started down this path, he doesn’t think he can back out. “You guys look _off_. Like, I sense tension.”

“What is _wrong_ with you?” Mitch shouts, roughly tugging Auston aside. Auston burns where Mitch’s fingers are pressing into his bicep. “Seriously, what’s up?”

“Nothing, forget it,” Auston says, pushing a hand through his hair. The bartender has finished making their drinks, and Auston drops a twenty on the bar in front of her as he picks them both up. He passes Mitch his raspberry mojito, which Mitch accepts with a questioning look.

“What does it matter, anyway?”

“You guys are just… so different,” Auston says, taking a long sip of his rum and coke.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’s just...all sophisticated and doctory and -”

“Are you serious, dude?” Mitch says, disbelieving. “You think he’s too good for me?”

“Promise you I don’t,” Auston snorts. The opposite, actually. But he keeps his mouth shut.

“So what is it, then?” Mitch demands, sounding increasingly frustrated.

Auston needs… damage control, or something, because Mitch looks like he’s seething, and it’s getting harder to have this conversation in earnest when the table Theo and all their friends are at inches closer with every step they take. Mitch has a right to look upset, of course, since he thinks Auston hates his relationship, which, like — Auston _does_ hate his relationship, but not for the reasons he thinks. So Auston has to backpedal, some.

Auston stops walking, and several people collide into him as a result. “Are you happy?” he asks abruptly.

Mitch pauses, startled out of his defensive posture. “I… am I _happy_? The fuck kind of question is that?”

Auston levels out his voice and repeats, “Are you _happy_? Does Theo make you happy? It’s an easy question.”

In his head, this was supposed to be a rhetorical question. Or, at least, a simple _yes_ or _no_. In his head, it was also supposed to sound less condescending and mean and a lot of other things that should have him disqualified from being Mitch’s friend, but Auston’s been taking a lot of L’s, lately, so what’s one more?

Auston isn’t expecting an answer, given what’s been going on lately, but he also isn’t expecting Mitch’s fight to crumble, for Mitch to start looking at him through wobbly eyes. He takes a shaky breath. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” Mitch answers.

“I just want you to be happy.” Auston realizes his resolve has evaporated into thin air, shot to dust in the space between them so all that’s left is the truth, the plain truth. As much as Auston would rather Mitch be happy _without_ Theo, he just wants to know that he’s happy, above all. Auston doesn’t know the first fucking thing about being in love, let alone being in love with Mitch, let alone let alone coping with those feelings in a healthy and productive way, but maybe the first step is making that distinction.

Mitch turns to make his way back to the group, then. Before he walks away, though, he glances up at Auston. Gives him a look that seems to pierce right through whatever façade Auston’s been wearing like a cheap disguise lately.

“I’m already fighting with him, Matty. I don’t want to fight with you, too.”

Something breaks inside of Auston, a hairline crack that spiders all the way to his heart. Auston lets it grip him, then. The knowledge that what Mitch means to him his completely disparate from what he means to Mitch. Maybe the incongruity is something to be savored, or maybe it’s something to hide from, but tonight, Auston lets in wash over him like tides to a shore he wouldn’t dream of reaching.

 

-x-

 

They’re about to wipe the floor with the Sabres when everything changes.

Auston barely slept last night. The past few nights, his mind has been looping through his conversation with Mitch at the bar, as though each of his brain cells are competing to supply him with all the alternative ways he could have handled the whole situation.

So he choked down a lukewarm cup of coffee at breakfast and went about his day with the usual routine applied. Practice, meal, nap, meal, arena. A rinse and repeat of every other game day in his career. Mitch has kept his distance, but Auston wouldn’t dream of blaming him. He’d be lying if he pretended he wasn’t also avoiding Mitch, if only to keep himself from running his mouth again.

Part of giving Mitch space involves trying not to pay too much attention to him, but Auston can’t help but notice when Pat nudges Mitch while passing his locker and asks, “Everything okay?”

Auston’s tugging his jersey on over his head, so Mitch doesn’t see his face when he answers, “Sure,” with an airy voice. “I mean, I just broke up with Theo, but otherwise, ‘m fine.”

Suddenly, all the aimless chatter of the locker room halts, the excitement draining out, replaced with a disquieting emptiness. Auston knows all the guys are almost embarrassingly protective of Mitch, but it’s like something out of a movie, the way everyone seems to snap to attention at Mitch’s quiet announcement.

Willy speaks first, shamelessly curious. “So what happened?”

Mitch shrugs, sliding into his gear like nothing’s wrong. “We’ve been fighting for a while. The distance thing sucked, too. Plus the never-seeing-each-other thing. And he was making me feel guilty for it, so…”

Willy’s eyes flicker to Auston, but Auston ignores him.

“It can’t have been easy,” Pat says, his voice smooth and sure, like the kind you’d use to comfort kids after a nightmare. That Auston finds himself taking comfort in it is maybe wrong; there’s nothing for which he should require consoling, and yet he’s still so edgy around Mitch that maybe he needs the balm of Pat’s presence in all its assuring normalcy to feel okay right now.

Mitch rubs the back of his neck. “And there were… other reasons, too,” he mumbles. Auston is almost certain he imagines it, then, the way Mitch’s eyes slide over to meet his own, before quickly darting away. Not that that means anything, since Mitch is talking to an audience, and it only makes sense for him to engage in eye contact with the people in front of him. But the brief locking of their eyes sends a sharp jolt of something electric down Auston’s spine. It’s not unlike dread, actually.

“How did he take it?” Auston asks, and it’s as if he hears his own voice without registering the words coming out of his mouth.

Mitch doesn’t answer for a while, like he has to compose a response. Finally, he just says, “Well, it was on his mind for a while, too, I guess.”

“Then it was amicable?” Mo asks, from three stalls down.

Mitch snorts. “Not exactly.” He takes a gulp of water from his water bottle, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “We both got pretty mad.” With a sigh, Mitch leans over to rest his forearms on his thighs. “I dunno, actually. It all happened pretty fast.”

“If you need anything, we’re here for you,” Zach puts in, before Auston can open his stupid mouth and say something else insensitive.

Did he do this? It’s not like Mitch was constantly floating around on a cloud of besotted bliss; Auston knows he’s been miserable lately, and that his relationship has been dancing closer to the end for a while, but he can’t help shake the feeling that their confrontation at the bar was a catalyst for this.

Auston can’t find it in himself to be remorseful, though.

 

-x-

 

On Monday, for the first time all season, Auston picks Mitch up and they drive to practice together. It’s partly to keep Mitch company, partly to return to their old habits and steer things back to normal. At least, as normal as they can be after so long out of their old routine. Things moved quickly, between their weird half-fight and Mitch’s breakup, and they haven’t had the chance to clear the air. Auston figures, in that sense, it’s probably a peace offering when he rolls up to Mitch’s condo with two double-doubles in the centre console.

Mitch is waiting for him outside, and a thin smile forms in the corner of his mouth when he hops into the passenger seat. He immediately cranks his seat warmer up and reaches for his coffee.

“Just like old times, eh?” he says, flipping back the tab on the lid and blowing away the steam that rises from within. The words are music to Auston’s ears.

“You know it,” Auston answers, shifting the car into drive and starting the familiar route from Mitch’s place to the practice arena.

The clouds today look heavy, weighted, like they’ve sunk down the horizon to land right in Auston’s sightline.

“Everything alright?” Auston asks, after five minutes, when Mitch hasn’t made a single move to sync his phone up to the bluetooth speakers.

Earlier, Auston had resolved to not bring up the breakup whatsoever, finding it probably safer to ignore it unless Mitch wanted to talk. But if Mitch is torn up about it, Auston can’t just be a dick and pretend it never happened. And though he doesn’t regret confronting Mitch earlier, he doesn’t know how long he can, in good conscience, disregard the fact that Mitch possibly dumped Theo because of something Auston said.

The song fades from Lil Wayne to Ariana Grande, and it’s worrisome in and of itself that Mitch doesn’t care enough to comment. “I keep wondering if I made a mistake,” Mitch confesses, halfway into the first chorus. “I mean, I literally broke up with him over FaceTime. Like, he was upset because he thought all we ever did was FaceTime and then we break up over FaceTime.” He worries at the rim of his paper coffee cup, rolling it up and pushing it back down in restless little motions. Auston wants to reach out and still him. Wants to reach out and hold his hand, too, but that’s another story. “Maybe if I waited, we wouldn’t have…” Mitch trails off.

Without meaning to, Auston scoffs. “You can’t think like that.” It’s started snowing; those small, pretty flakes, where each one is unique — not just those big clumps of snow that fall from Toronto skies most of the time. Auston flips on the wipers, but most of the flakes just melt the second they hit the windshield.

“Can’t really help it, I guess.” Mitch looks like he wants to roll down the window and jump right out of Auston’s car. “I didn’t have to FaceTime him. I could’ve driven to his place and done it face to face. Am I a terrible person?”

Auston wants to slam the brakes for effect, and impresses himself when he manages to maintain a speed that keeps the flow of traffic and doesn’t threaten to impede the safety of anyone else sharing the road. “No, you’re not a terrible person, dude, come on. That’s crazy,” he says. Finally, their exit looms into view. Mitch is still sulking beside him.

“He wasn’t that great, anyway,” Auston says, focusing on carefully changing lanes instead of the way Mitch’s hands are balled into fists on his thighs. “Seriously.”

“Well, that makes exactly one person who thinks the hot, funny doctor was lame,” Mitch bites back, dripping with sarcasm. “Because sure, yeah, that makes sense.”

“Dude,” Auston says, chancing a look at Mitch, who’s leaning his head against the window.

Mitch sighs, heavy. “ _I_ broke up with _him_ , Aus. You don’t have to pretend you hated him. I know what I let go of, and I did it for a reason. So you don’t have to keep looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m about to fall apart.”

What Mitch doesn’t realize is that Auston’s the one about to fall apart.

Auston wants to tell him he doesn’t feel bad. He wants to tell Mitch all the selfish, impossible thoughts he’s had lately, the confusion and anger that’s driven him to a point where he barely feels like he can look at Mitch without his heart caving in. He wants to say he never liked Theo, that no one could ever hope to be good enough for Mitch. Most of all, he wants to say that he really wishes none of this were real, that he didn’t feel this way at all, that he could just go about his life completely unbothered by the existence of Mitch Marner. But he keeps his mouth shut, because he’s trying to be a good friend, trying to be there for Mitch through this time, when he feels like it’s been a while since he’s really been there. Besides, he’s not sure how much good any of that would do, now.

They’re dancing around several conversations at once, maybe more. All those things Auston told Mitch in anger, in confrontation, it’s like they’ve crystalized and have subsequently been crushed to a fine dust, floating around them. Auston never apologized. He has the distinct impression it’s too late, now.

The snow is still floating indifferent in the air, but the sky can’t seem to make up its mind about what colour it wants to be. It’s streaked with purple and angry orange on one side, cold grey on another. It’s enormous; it could be several hundred different colors at once. Mitch stays quiet the rest of the drive. Every so often, he tips his phone over in his hands, checking if he has any notifications.

 

-x-

 

If Auston was expecting everything to be back to normal after Mitch and Theo broke up, he was significantly out of his depth in that assumption. _Normal_ , he finds, hardly even exists with them, anymore.

Auston’s never been in a relationship that lasted long enough to necessitate a mourning period, so he has no clue how long Marns will be in his current state. It gives him time, at least, to figure out how it’s possible for him to carry Mitch in everything he does, to feel Mitch reverberating through the tiniest, most atomic parts of him and to still be paralyzed at the thought of Mitch finding out how he feels.

If they weren’t hockey players, he’d be able to act on his feelings, Auston reasons. If there wasn’t a huge spotlight permanently trained on them, with an army of media who scrutinize their every move.

Or, maybe he’d be more comfortable with the idea of confessing if Mitch hadn’t _just_ broken up with his first serious boyfriend. If acting on all the feelings that have been choking him lately, crowded up around his throat whenever he tries to speak, didn’t mean making a move on Mitch while he’s still emotionally vulnerable.

Or, if Auston had only realized his feelings earlier. If he’d had this revelation before the off-season, before Theo swept Mitch off his feet. If he’d gotten his shit together and managed to morph into some intensely braver version of himself. If he had some - any - reassurance that Mitch felt even remotely the same way.

Or, maybe even if they existed in a universe where the stakes were twice as high. Him and Mitch as spies, or like, people in charge of the fate of the world. Facing an impossible decision, a suicide mission, Auston could tell Mitch everything. Could say, “Listen, I love you, you’re part of me, you’re in my fucking bones,” and then he could face the blaze, could march right up to it, and throw a glance behind him, at Mitch, and say, “Don’t come after me.”

The list of _ifs_ gets longer the more Auston dwells on it. Sometimes, he lets himself wish things were different. Sometimes he even imagines what it would have been like if he’d said something first. He imagines the gentle smile Mitch would fix him with, the tentative first kiss, the feeling of the universe settling while music inexplicably crescendos around them.

That train of thought is a dead fucking end, though. Every time he indulges that particular fantasy, the gentle smile eventually morphs into a grimace, and the kiss is replaced by an instant recoil, and instead of the universe settling into place, the tectonic plates shift and shriek beneath them to create a massive earthquake. And there’s no music.

He feels so stupid, so transparent. Mitch has always understood him on a fundamental level, has always been able to stare through every layer of him right down to his burning core. Mitch reads him like nobody’s ever dared to. And now, Mitch just needs him to be delicate, and Auston can barely do that without getting his own feelings tangled up in the mix. Auston can’t help but feel like he’s failing him spectacularly.

The thought keeps him up at night, because he and Mitch started out as best friends. Somewhere along the line, Auston’s feelings muddied, transformed into something bigger than he can really fathom. But those feelings are keeping him from being the friend that Mitch needs, the friend that Mitch expects him to be. Most nights, that thought makes him spiral until the sun peeks through his curtains and he realizes he hasn’t done anything all night besides toss and Turn.

Tonight, though, he doesn’t have to lie awake with his thoughts for long. His phone starts vibrating from his nightstand. Auston’s not altogether surprised that it’s Mitch on the other line, but it does nothing to ease the anxiety roiling Auston’s stomach. He slides to accept the call.

“Can’t sleep?” Auston’s eyelids are heavy, and he’s dazed, disoriented by the disruption.

“Not really,” Mitch admits, sounding fully awake. “Lately.”

“Yeah.” Auston coughs, an attempt to clear the sleep from his voice. “Me neither.”

“We’re a coupl’a insomniacs, I guess, eh?” There’s a smile in his voice, Auston thinks, like he’s said something just for the two of them. It’s Auston’s favourite, when he talks like that, because not a day has gone by since they met that Auston hasn’t wanted to be included in everything Mitch does.

“I guess so, bud,” Auston answers. Interacting with Mitch these days is like crossing a tightrope over a thousand-foot drop, and Auston’s toeing the thinnest line imaginable. Ever since their awkward carpool, Auston’s been afraid to do something that will unintentionally put more distance between them. In some distant, inaccessible corner of his brain, he acknowledges that sleepy, intimate, late-night phone calls maybe fall into that category, and yet something keeps him from hanging up, from pushing Mitch away. Like he’s hardwired to bask in whatever attention Mitch offers him, no matter the personal toll.

“You know, we used to do this,” Mitch says, all of a sudden. “We used to just stay on the phone all night until one of us fell asleep.”

At first, Auston thinks he’s talking about the two of them, until he remembers that, despite their few late night former-rituals, calling each other in the witching hour to talk in soft, hushed voices about nothing in particular was not one. The last thing Auston wants is to hear about everything Mitch used to do with Theo. It makes him angry, it makes him sick. Above all, it makes him mad at himself. He wants to be able to talk to Mitch without talking about Theo, to look at Mitch without seeing the way Mitch looked at Theo. He wants, for fucking once, to look at Mitch and have Mitch see him back, see him as Auston wants to be seen. Better yet, he wants to go back in time and look at Mitch with everything he knows now. He can’t keep himself from wondering if that would have changed anything.

“Can I be honest, for a second?” Mitch says.

“Go ahead,” Auston says back, shoving his wishes away. He’s careful not to breathe too loudly.

“I think I loved him a lot - ” Mitch starts, and it makes Auston’s stomach lurch. “Or, I think I _thought_ I had to love him a lot. I dunno. But it’s like, y’know, what guy would volunteer to be in a relationship with me?”

Auston flips over in bed and dials the volume on his phone up a notch, his apparently not-dormant best friend instincts awakening from a primal-deep place in him, despite his lack of sleep. “Mitch, that’s horseshit - ”

“No, just - I’m being practical. Our schedule kind of makes it impossible for a relationship, you know? Like, who would sign up for that? I know that there are, like, worse problems or whatever. And I did… love him, but I think I loved the idea of being with him, more. The idea that none of the stuff with the press and the travel and all that mattered.”

He says it all so casually that it feels like he’s been sitting on the thought for a while. It hardly sounds like he’s discovering this as he talks, and it makes Auston’s heart clench. Auston pulls the phone away from his ear for a moment to check the time. 2:41. He doesn’t know what to say. Mitch just dropped a bomb, an anchor. A lifeline.

The other side of the line is quiet, but Auston can still make out Mitch’s soft, shaky breathing.

What if, all those _ifs_ on Auston’s imaginary list, none of them even matter? What if Mitch has the same thoughts, wonders, worries, questions as him? It could be so easy to find out. Auston could just ask and Mitch could just answer, and they could be happy together. They could be so happy.

“Hey, Mitch?” Auston says, fingers curling in his pillowcase. It’s on the tip of his tongue.

“Yeah, Aus?” Mitch says back, soft.

Auston starts, “Do you ever think...?” before closing his mouth. There’s something happening between them, something both tangible and so far out of reach, delicate yet ruthless, and Auston wants to scream about it to the whole world, to anyone who’ll listen, and yet —

Yet he can’t even bring himself to ask Mitch about it. There’s something dangerous in it, how he could speak the words into the universe and never be able to take them back. Would Mitch think of him differently, afterwards? Would he feel betrayed? Disappointed? Disgusted?

Auston only realizes he hasn’t said anything more, hasn’t even switched topics, when Mitch laughs softly and asks, “Do I ever think _what_?”

It’s gone, all of a sudden, the curiosity. If Auston never asks, then he’ll never be disappointed. He’ll never _disappoint_ Mitch again, is the more important part. He can’t keep being a bad friend, and part of that means not asking selfish questions. He should be able to listen to Mitch talk about his ex without making it about him, about them.

Auston turns over in bed, ignoring the sudden icy heartache that blooms in his chest and spreads through his veins, slow and frostbitten. “Never mind, it’s nothing.”

 

-x-

 

That weekend, it’s as though the fragile conversation they had in the dark never happened. A few guys on the team decide it would be a good idea to go out and abandon all sense of decorum (which means abandoning any sense at all), and Mitch was the first to express how emphatically on board with that he was.

“I’ve been ready to rebound since _yesterday_!”

Mitch’s voice carries in slurred syllables across the bar, reaching Auston’s ears even from several feet away.

Treatment of Mitch post-breakup has varied, depending on who’s looking after him. Naz is currently the one supplying Mitch with bottomless vodka cranberries, and his head is quirked in an amused tilt as Mitch talks in decibel levels that climb with every sip. Auston tries to tune it out, to focus on the rest of the bar, but he knows his attention hones back to Mitch whenever he forgets to actively train it not to.

It was hard enough watching Mitch get cozy with his boyfriend. Now, Mitch is giving his whole self, his most open smile to anyone who bats their eye at him. He’s being regular Mitch to the hundredth power. It’s infinitely more stressful. Auston’s trying his best not to let it distract him, trying not to succumb to the overwhelming, outrageous need that tells him to just _go over_ and _touch_ and _feel._ He’s never felt more pathetically mortal than he does right now.

“You could probably use a drink,” Willy says, materializing in front of Auston like some telepathic fairy godparent. He procures a beer from behind his back.

“Did you just have that on hand?” Auston asks, accepting the beer anyway. “Or do you just have magic powers now?”

“Both!” Willy answers with an exaggerated wink. “I’ve got your back,” he adds, which Auston appreciates enough that he doesn’t chirp when Willy proceeds to float over to Zach’s side, where he’ll presumably stay for the rest of the night. Auston wishes Patty had come out.

When he finishes Willy’s magical beer, Auston figures there’s no point in hanging around any longer. The night is early enough that there’s still a bit of excitement in the air; nobody’s yawning or lingering around twiddling their thumbs, and Auston would prefer to leave before it got to that. He hates the tipping point in a night out where it turns from bright to quiet, when people are kicking around more to delay the process of calling a cab than out of a real sense of fun. So he grabs his coat from the back of his chair and gives a quick salute to the guys who notice and makes his way to the exit.

The door swings open behind him, before he’s even had a chance to take two steps outside.

“Hey -”

It’s Mitch. Auston pretends not to hear him and keeps walking.

“Hey, you’re leaving already?” Mitch says, shoving his arms into the sleeves of his jacket as he shuffles a few quick steps to catch up. He touches Auston’s arm, and Auston startles. Mitch is unnervingly tactile; that’s probably the first fact most people learn about him. Lately, it’s been overwhelming, staggering, and Mitch is being too generous with his touches, again. It makes Auston’s breath catch in his throat every single time.

Mitch wobbles and Auston reaches out to steady him. There’s nothing to it, besides Auston’s arm around Mitch’s… well, his waist. He nearly burns at the contact, despite the layers of insulated fabric between them.

Mitch frowns, but leans into Auston ever so slightly. “I’m not - ”

“You’re not gonna break, I know,” Auston says gently.

The frown softens into a smirk, and Mitch leans in with an abundance of confidence that can only be alcohol-induced. “Do you even _know_ how much I can bench, now?”

“Two whole acorns?” Auston guesses, without missing a beat. It’s a reach for a familiar joke. In their rookie season, someone photoshopped Mitch’s face on the body of a squirrel and the guys chirped him for it for two straight weeks.

Mitch’s mouth hangs open, but he fixes his face in a scoff pretty immediately. “That’s literally the rudest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he says, and if Auston weren’t hyper sensitive to every subtle change in the pitch of Mitch’s voice, he’d swear that sounded flirty. He wonders just how drunk Mitch is right now.

Whatever confliction Auston feels about single Mitch, whatever fire rages in his ribcage, whatever paralysis he endures from loving his best friend, it’s hard to maintain when Mitch is here, looking up at him, adorably invading his space while oblivious to the fact he’s even doing so. Auston feels his front chipped away at.

With Mitch, the hard exterior isn’t only chipped away at. With Mitch, it’s carved into something beautiful, something loveable. Like Mitch is some sculptor who looked at a block of ice and saw just exactly what it could be, and he carves into it every time he looks at Auston like that.

“You’re really going home now?” Mitch asks, even though they’ve been walking away from the bar for a few minutes already.

Auston shrugs. “Are you?”

Mitch lists to the side. “Don’t wanna, but if you are, I are,” he says, and immediately dissolves into laughter.

“You _are_ drunk,” Auston puts in.

“I are,” Mitch repeats, with a solemn nod. His eyes are so fucking blue, Auston thinks. “And you are cute.” He hops and bumps his shoulder against Auston’s and for a moment, Auston can’t breathe.

Mitch smiles at him and he feels bigger, more whole, than he’s felt in a long time. That’s Mitch’s superpower, Auston thinks — that ability to make you feel important, like you can exceed your own skin. Auston never understood what it meant for the stakes of his everyday life to feel like they’ve suddenly skyrocketed, like all his movements are now determined by this huge unspoken thing. He is aware of every cell in his body, vibrating in tandem, charging up to an explosive reaction he already knows he won’t be able to contain. He just hopes Mitch doesn’t notice.

The wind is starting to pick up around them, howling loudly through the wind tunnel created by the skyscrapers bookending the road. Every so often, they’ll cross a patch of slick ice on the sidewalk. Luckily, the sidewalks have been sprinkled with rock salt and sand; otherwise, Auston would worry about Mitch slipping and falling. It would make sense to get a cab, probably, but Auston knows Mitch needs the walk to sober up.

“I mean, I’m sure there’s a dance somewhere we could chaperone,” Auston says eventually, with a grin.

Mitch snorts. “Theo was _so_ pissed about that, did I ever tell you?” he asks.

Auston feels the blood drain from his face. “No, you didn’t.” He hopes Mitch drops it. That night feels like lifetimes ago, now, even though it was a few short weeks ago, and there’s no use in bringing it up.

But Mitch continues, with a smile that looks neither happy nor sad. “Yeah, he was like, _you had to call Auston?_ And I was like, _yeah, cause you were MIA_. He… I dunno, he did not take it well, even though he was the one who bailed. He thought you were, like, into me. Isn’t that…” Mitch pauses, like he’s parsing his words, and then he giggles. “Crazy?” He’s got a dazed look on his face, and with the shadows cast by the street lamps, Auston finds it hard to tell how serious he’s being.

Auston finds it even harder to pretend that it’s a crazy thought, but he manages to make himself nod wordlessly.

“Anyway, I’m over it,” Mitch says, abruptly, “ _whatever._ ”

The night air pools around them, nips at the places where Auston’s skin is exposed - nose and ankles and fingertips. It dulls the rest of his senses, the prick of icy wind a too-sharp sensation to notice anything else. All Auston ever wants is to be beside Mitch, but now, he wishes he were anywhere else. It’s all just a bit too close, like they’re inches from the curtain being pulled back and some spotlight illuminating all the ways Auston’s probably failed their friendship by not being able to keep his fucking heart in check.

“Are you?” Auston asks. His arm is still swung around the shiny material of Mitch’s down jacket, hand purposely limp; not touching Mitch, just supporting him.

“Yeah, I _are_ ,” Mitch answers with a pout. “ _So_ over it. I don’t even remember his name.”

“And yet you’ve been talking about him all night,” Auston says, bemused, willing the frustration out of his voice. After a beat, curiosity and six beers’ worth of lack of restraint make him ask, “Why did you do it?” And then, before Mitch can ask for clarification, “Break up with him. Why’d you do it?”

Mitch tilts his head, and his eyes reflect moonlight and a thousand bright little stars. It’s the clearest they’ve looked all night. “You know why.” He sways a little, then, and Auston knows he has to get a fucking grip, but he lets himself angle towards Mitch.

He realizes too late that they’ve made it to the intersection that splits Auston’s place from Mitch’s place. Auston doesn’t say anything, but a shiver makes its way down his spine.

“You’re okay to get home from here?”

“M’fine,” Mitch answers.

It creeps up on him, at times, how huge Mitch makes him feel. Like he’s capable of anything. Auston thinks about kissing him - his mouth, his forehead, his cheeks, all over. It’s blistering, a little, the way Mitch seems to catch on Auston’s skin, like striking a match. Auston wishes he knew what incredible fire Mitch was forged from. He’s all embers, sometimes, warm and low.

Auston turns around to look back at him, but only once.

 

-x-

 

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Yes, we are. You owe me, come on.”

“Yeah right.”

Willy’s wearing a backwards cap so Auston reaches over to knock it off his head. “You _owe_ me.”

Willy scoffs. “No, bud, I don’t owe you jackshit.”

“Just tell me what’s going on with Hyms and then I’ll drop it.”

“Yeah? You’ll drop it after I tell you all about it?” Willy laughs sarcastically. “It doesn’t work like that, buddy.”

Auston breaks into a smile. “So there _is_ something to tell? I knew it!”

“Need I remind you you didn’t even know it when you had your own _something_?” Willy says, hanging exaggerated air quotes around the word, and Auston rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

For some reason, it’s easier to be around his feelings for Mitch when he’s with Willy. He feels less trapped in his own self-imposed vortex of painful longing when he spends time with someone in an incredibly similar situation. He’s able to laugh about it, even, which is impressive considering his massive dilemma never feels particularly funny when he’s alone.

Auston leaves Willy alone, though. Willy’s like a cat, sometimes; give him space and he’ll eventually come up to talk to you willingly. In fairness, Willy also doesn’t press the subject of Mitch. They talk about it covertly, sometimes by sharing meaningful glances, but there’s only so much Auston can complain about being in love with Mitch, without taking any actionable steps to help himself before he turns into a pillar of salt from embarrassment and heartache.

He and Willy are shooting the shit, half-paying attention to the Preds/Wild game on TV when Mitch’s dumb mid-celly face lights up Willy’s phone screen from where it’s resting on the coffee table in front of them.

Willy holds out a hand, gesturing to Auston to keep watching, as he heaves himself off the couch, and collects his phone in one fell swoop.

“Hey, man, what’s up?” Auston hears him say, as he disappears down the hall and into the bedroom. The door closes behind him with a soft click, and Auston gets hit with a wave of dread.

Willy’s not the sort of person to care who overhears his phone conversations, especially if he’s just talking to one of the guys. Willy airs his dirty laundry with no discretion about who might overhear it. Besides, he’s a caller, anyway, and that in and of itself requires a different kind of disregard for privacy. Why would he need to take a call from Mitch in private if it weren’t in some way related to Auston? Auston slides to the edge of the couch closer to the bedroom and tells himself it’s not eavesdropping as he strains his ears to listen.

He resumes his slouched position when he hears the door open, and raises an eyebrow as Willy returns to join him. Willy flops back on the couch, legs outstretched so his feet are resting by Auston’s thigh. His eyes are trained on the TV as he says, “I don’t know if you even know what you’re doing, but I hope you do.”

Auston just flicks his gaze back to the game on TV. When Auston doesn’t say anything, Willy digs his toes into Auston’s thigh.

“Come on, man,” he says.

Auston keeps his gaze level, trained in front of him. “It’s no big deal.”

That’s maybe the biggest lie he’s heard himself tell in a while.

At least Willy’s a good enough friend to call him on it. “You’re full of shit.”

Auston shrugs in response. He doesn’t bother paying attention to the rest of the game. Willy hums a few times, towards the end of the third. Otherwise, they both stay mum. The energy shifts after the phone call, but Auston feels too unsettled to do anything to fix it.

 

-x-

 

Auston wonders if maybe the conversation with Willy has anything to do with Mitch asking if they can hang out the following day, after practice. Either that, or the universe has absolutely zero sympathy for him anymore.

“Sure, yeah, you can come over now,” Auston says, mostly on auto-pilot. His default instinct to blindly cling to any attention from Mitch is really fucking up his self-preservation, these days.

That’s how he ends up with a bizarre case of déjà vu, with Mitch lounging on his sofa at dusk and a mouthful of words he’s not saying.

Mitch has been insisting they start watching _Schitt’s Creek_ for a while now, so Auston queues up Netflix and settles down on the couch next to him. He made them both hot chocolate - mixed the powdered stuff into some skim milk with a pinch of cinnamon, hoping that his choice of fat percentage cancelled out whatever dietary violation he was incurring - and is nearly brought to tears by the way Mitch cups his mug with both hands and blows the steam away. Which is maybe not a great start to the afternoon, but he’s only human; there’s only so much of Mitch being all dumb and luminous in his living room Auston can reasonably endure. He can barely handle watching Mitch from across the ice anymore, without feeling like his entire heart is going to just pack up and leave his chest.

Auston kind of wishes they’d chosen something louder to watch. An action movie, maybe, with more audible sound effects to fill up Auston’s living room, which, aside from the dialog of the show, is dead quiet. Neither of them are offering even the slightest hint of commentary, which does nothing but elevate the tension. There shouldn’t even _be_ tension between them, is the thing. There’s plenty of tension on Auston’s side of things, sure, but that’s mostly self-inflicted and semi-permanent. Logically, nothing should be out of the ordinary between the two of them. Except, of course, the utter pandemonium of their season, the weird thing that almost happened between them after the bar the other night, and the fact that things have been noticeably, tangibly different in their friendship since September. Theo’s presence - or lack thereof - notwithstanding.

Then, miraculously out of the blue, Mitch asks, “How are your folks?”

Auston feels his heart rate pick up. “Fine, yeah,” he answers, fiddling with a piece of lint on his sweatpants. He pries it free and flicks it on the ground, before moving on to another piece. “You?”

“Good, good. I’m seeing them this weekend.”

“Cool.”

The thing is, things have been weird and tense for a while, sure. But they haven’t been _this_ weird or _this_ tense, and it’s putting Auston on edge. He’s far too self-aware, like when you think too hard about the fact that you’re a person and you have a body, and you move your hands just to prove you can. He feels like Mitch can see every part of him, but that’s not new. Mitch has always had an uncanny ability to just… get him. Sometimes that’s crucial, it’s comforting and wonderful, but sometimes, it’s torture.

After a while, Mitch sits up a bit straighter. “So, are you… are you seeing anybody?”

Auston chokes. “ _Excuse me_?” he squeaks.

Mitch scrubs a hand over his face. “I dunno, I feel like… I just feel like I don’t know anything about your life anymore.”

“We see each other all the time,” Auston feels inclined to point out, however moot.

“You know what I mean, man.”

A few moments go by before Auston finds something to say. If Mitch is the absolute last person he wants to discuss this with, it’s hardly Mitch’s fault, he supposes. “I dunno. Getting to know someone is a lot of work,” Auston says, hoping he doesn’t sound as cynical as he feels.

Mitch hums. “Yeah, I guess it is,” he agrees. Auston keeps his eyes trained on the TV, but he feels Mitch shift on the couch to look at him. “But you don’t think you could try to let anybody know you?”

Auston remains studiously focused on the various hijinx of the Rose family. In no universe is he brave enough to face Mitch as he says, “Only you know me. You know that.” He doesn’t chance a look at Mitch’s reaction, either. Probably better that he doesn’t.

After a beat, Mitch answers, “I guess I do.”

Auston chases down the quickest thing he can tack onto that statement to salvage whatever’s left of his dignity. “And, I dunno, unless you’re in it for the long haul, it’s kind of hard to date anybody,” he continues. “You said it yourself — who would volunteer to be with someone who’s constantly travelling and doing press and stuff?”

“I guess,” Mitch says slowly. “But let me get this straight. You don’t want to be in a relationship, because it’s a lot of work getting to know somebody?” Mitch snorts. “That’s complicated. And dumb.”

Auston shrugs. “Letting somebody get to know me,” he corrects, flexing his fingers around his mug. “It just doesn’t seem worth it to me.” He pauses, and amends, “Right now, anyway.”

Mitch shifts more so he can face Auston directly. There’s something rigid in him. It’s not worry, exactly, but a confusion that pinches at his face unfamiliarly. “Do you really think so?”

Auston blinks. There are ten thousand things he wants to tell Mitch. That he wants to wake up and ask what Mitch thinks of the sky, he wants to close his eyes and be able to trace Mitch’s face from memory, he wants to lie down after a long day, a hard win, and have Mitch next to him. That there’s nobody else on the face of the earth that knows him like Mitch knows him. “I don’t think I could do it,” he says.

Mitch doesn’t say anything for a while. Instead, he fiddles with his phone, turning it over in his hands, sliding the case off and back on. “Some things are just worth it,” Mitch says, finally. “Even if they’re scary and awful. _Especially_ then, you know? You have to just go for it, and stop being afraid.”

It sounds like he’s trying to fit some other meaning between the words, but Auston feels like he’s walking through a murky swamp, with seaweed catching and pulling his ankles, keeping him from it. There are also the massive blinders that Auston’s affixed to his head, keeping him from reading into it at all for fear of assuming the wrong thing. If he gets this wrong, any of this, there’s no going back.

After another moment of Auston not knowing how to respond, Mitch leans forward and brushes some invisible dust off the coffee table. “Sorry,” he says, “that was lame.” He places his mug down on one of the coasters.

Auston just coughs. “No, it’s fine.”

Mitch stands up abruptly, stuffs his phone into his back pocket and turns towards the front entrance. “I think I’m gonna go.”

That’s the last thing Auston wants. Well, he’s silently been hoping for it since they set foot in his condo earlier, but he thinks, subconsciously, he never actually wants Mitch to leave. And yet, Auston can’t do a damn thing to stop him.

Why? Why is he always getting so close? Always pulling too far away, always lingering in those in-between spaces, only to disappoint them both?

He’s out of his seat before he can really reckon with what he’s doing. Following Mitch is instinct, by now, same as he’s been doing since day one.

Mitch has a hand on the door handle when Auston calls out, “Mitch, wait.” Mitch turns around, and before he can think twice, Auston grabs his wrist and pulls him closer. Auston’s pulse is hammering so loud Mitch must hear it. It’s all he can hear, like he was born to bear witness to this incredible, unfathomable being that is Mitch Marner.

Mitch makes a startled, beautiful sound at the first press of their lips, but he doesn’t move. His body is rigid and Auston doesn’t breathe, doesn’t dare break the dam in his mind telling him this was a huge fucking mistake, knowing that all his doubts and worries would come tumbling through with abandon. Auston starts to pull away, to apologize, not wanting to prolong the sensation of his lips against Mitch’s reactionless mouth. He takes a half-step back, and has a brief moment to take in Mitch’s dazed expression, before Mitch is surging forward, crushing his lips back against Auston’s.

He clutches at Auston’s shoulders and goes from zero to sixty, placid to wanton, _desperate_ in half a second. Auston recognizes lust, can practically feel it evaporating off Mitch’s skin and into the air between them, and it’s so sweet and addictive that Auston clings to it like a fucking junkie. He winds his arms around Mitch’s torso and holds on for dear life, trying to inject everything he has into a single kiss. The weight that’s been holding him down these past few weeks slowly uncurls, morphs into something different, liquid hot through his veins.

Without breaking apart, Auston grabs at Mitch’s waist, maneuvering them over to the nearest wall so he can press Mitch against it. Mitch moans into his mouth, and scrambles to get a leg around Auston’s waist, and Auston’s mind goes blank. Auston slides a hand under his thigh easily enough. It’s a little awkward because Mitch is acting like he’s smaller than he really is, but Auston manages to tilt his head and find the right angle. Mitch grips his shoulders like he’s learning to touch for the first time, clutching Auston like he’s all Mitch has ever known. Auston revels in it, burns in a way he never has before. This isn’t a game; this is life and death and all Auston’s ever been good at his forging his own path, moving forward with attention and figuring it out as he goes. Mitch keeps making these insane sounds, and there’s something about them like he’s trying to communicate in some outrageous version of morse code. Auston feels like he’s drowning.

He’s never been more okay with being out of his fucking depth in his entire life.

When he steps back for air, Mitch looks like someone who’s just been kissed _raw_. He even touches his lips, brings two fingertips up to his mouth like he’s tracing something right out of a dream. Auston’s breathing is heavy, ragged, like it’s being ripped from his chest with every inhale. Like they’re both aware that something sacred and impossible and dangerous has just taken place. Auston wouldn’t turn back time if he could, and maybe he’s betraying Mitch by admitting it to himself, the thought echoing through his cavernous soul like the truest words ever spoken were actually whispered. Mitch looks petrified, staring at Auston like Auston is a stranger, or maybe like Mitch is the stranger — Auston doesn’t know. All he knows is one minute, they’re staring at each other helplessly, wild eyes and electric fingertips — the next, Mitch is latching onto him again, hands grappling at Auston’s back, lips crushing painfully together. Auston sighs into his mouth, and it feels like this is how breathing was always meant to feel.

Almost cruelly, the kiss is over seemingly just as it’s begun. Mitch pulls away hurriedly, breathing whispered half-apologies into the fragments of space that now separate them.

And then Mitch turns around and bolts.

The door closes with a slam behind him, forcing Auston to ruminate on the consequences of what just happened alone, in complete silence. All he can do is slide down the wall, landing on the hardwood floor with a plunk, and tip his head backwards. It seems grounding yet unfair that the walls should still be standing, after a kiss like that _._

Time stirs at a glacial pace, the light from the windows dimming almost cinematically as Auston remains in his front entrance, unmoved. He runs a hand through his hair and wonders what Mitch is doing right now, if he’s crossed the hallway and made it to the elevators, to his car yet, or if he’s still out there, just a few feet away. He wonders if Mitch feels capable of driving, because Auston thinks all of his motor skills have suddenly vanished, melted slowly in the heat of the kiss and then evaporating into thin air, leaving him completely incapacitated.

He has no idea where they go from here.

It’s all so abrupt; the completely unceremonious ending stings, and Auston shudders with a chill that rips its way up his spine. He’s cold in all the spaces Mitch no longer occupies. He feels himself ripple with hypersensitivity, like he’s wilting from overexposure. Maybe that’s why Mitch had to leave so quickly.

Then again, maybe Mitch wanted no part in it. Maybe he never wanted to be kissed in the first place and Auston just fucked up their friendship irreparably. Auston doesn’t think Mitch has hooked up with anyone since Theo; maybe he was just trying to rebound, and realized almost immediately that it was a huge mistake.

But. Maybe Mitch kissed him back for a reason.

Auston shakes his head to dislodge the thought and stands up, averting his gaze from the spot in the hallway where he had Mitch pinned not twenty minutes before. He makes a beeline for his liquor cabinet. Dealing with his emotions in the wake of this evening by himself is an easily-solved yet inevitable problem. Auston can’t tell anybody about this. He knows he can’t, knows that Mitch leaving is enough to signal that this was likely an embarrassing mistake and he can’t humiliate the both of them by telling anyone. Not even Willy. But Captain Morgan, on the other hand, is someone who will listen and won’t repeat a word of it. They have a day off tomorrow, anyway, so Auston doesn’t feel guilty as he tips the bottle of spiced rum into an empty glass, filling it nearly halfway full before topping it off with a half-inch of flat coke to make the drink somewhat more palatable.

He avoids checking his phone, for fear that Mitch has been texting him.

For fear that Mitch hasn’t.

Instead, he gets Alexa to order him a pizza and queues up four feel-good movies on Netflix, all the while keeping the bottle of rum within arm’s reach. Eventually, he runs out of coke and settles for taking half-hearted swigs from the bottle, watching _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_ with glazed eyes. It takes surprisingly less restraint than anticipated to avoid his phone all night, even with it tucked in the pocket of the sweats he later changes into. Auston dozes off just as the end credits starts to roll, and falls into a dreamless sleep on the couch.

 

-x-

 

The next morning, Auston is jolted into consciousness by a groaning pressure building in his stomach. He barely makes it from the couch to the bathroom in time to retch up the entire contents of his stomach. Sweat beads at his temple as he heaves several more times, to varying degrees of success. He slides down the toilet to press his forehead against the cool tiled floor, and lets his eyes slip shut with the hope of falling back asleep right next to a toilet full of his vomit.

As if trying to save him from himself, his phone starts to buzz from his pocket. Auston has half a mind to chuck it against the wall to make the sound stop, but he slides the Accept bar instead without checking to see who the fuck is calling him at this ungodly hour.

Auston hangs his head between his knees. “Yeah?” he says, voice hoarse.

A beat of silence. And then, “Man, what happened to you?”

Auston groans. Mitch. He suppresses a dry heave before weakly replying, “Rough night.” He taps the speakerphone button and sets the phone down on the edge of the tub, shifting so he can lean against it and just listen to Mitch talk, without having to exert any energy by lifting the phone to his ear.

“Oh yeah? What did you do? Were you with Willy? He said he was going to see you maybe.” He sounds wholly unaffected by the fact that Auston is tackling the hangover from literal hell right now, and it seems totally unfair.

Auston takes a deep breath. His brain is too dehydrated to focus on any one question that Mitch just asked. “Spiced rum,” is all he says, figuring Mitch will remember what happened the last time Auston dipped this low into his spiced rum. It involved stripping to his underwear and proclaiming slews of indecent remarks from his balcony for all of Toronto to hear.

Mitch gets it, of course he does, and he laughs a bright and clearly not-hungover laugh. “Sucks, dude.”

Auston’s throat is burning and his eyes are watering and the guy whose friendship he just botched by kissing him is calling him at nine in the fucking morning and _laughing at him_.

Auston doesn’t have the mental capacity to ask Mitch what he wants or why he’s calling. He barely has it in him to wipe his mouth off with the back of his hand. In fact, he has to abruptly abort his position against the tub to retch his guts into the toilet. He only feels a little shameful for letting Mitch hear him, but Mitch doesn’t seem to mind.

“I...guess this isn’t the best time,” Mitch says. “To… _talk_.”

Auston wants to say _you think?_ but then it dawns on him that by _talk_ , Mitch probably means talk _about yesterday_ , and in an instant, the blood coursing lazily through Auston’s hungover veins turns to ice.

“Talk.” Auston repeats. He intends for it to be skeptical, questioning Mitch’s intention to talk at all, but Mitch must interpret it as a command, because that’s exactly what he starts to do.

“I was just thinking about… what happened yesterday. I’m sorry I kind of left without saying anything, but I’ve gotta be honest, it was, like, incredibly confusing and it just felt like there was too much going on and I was literally losing my grip on reality and—”

Auston genuinely tries to follow what Mitch is rambling about. His head lolls about, as if untethered, and even with only one set of lights on and his eyes closed, it’s still too goddamn bright. He wonders, furiously, why he keeps the Advil so fucking far from the toilet. The medicine cabinet is on the opposite end of the bathroom, and there is _no way_ his balance will let him walk over there without collapsing. He could maybe crawl, or slide, something to maintain a low center of gravity, but then there’s the whole issue of standing up, sending more blood rushing up to his head.

“— I don’t really know what you meant by that. Erm, if you even meant for it to happen at all? I don’t know —“

Auston takes a shallow, shaky breath, trying to let the sound of Mitch’s voice, tinny through the speakerphone, anchor him. It doesn’t really work; Mitch sounds too far off, like he’s trying to communicate with Auston through a fish tank. Auston’s stomach clenches and somersaults and he knows there’s another round coming up soon, he can feel it. He braces his hands on either side of the toilet before loudly puking up what _has_ to be the rest of the rum. His oesophagus is singed by the acidic bile that lurches out of him and his stomach feels like it’s been turned inside-out. With as little effort as possible, Auston scoots towards the tub and leans under the tap, twisting it on a fraction so he can choke down some lukewarm water and wash his face while he’s at it.

“Matts? Are you still there? That sounded rough.”

Mitch’s voice nudges Auston back to awareness, his unusually timid voice sounding small compared to the other sounds that have disturbed his bathroom this morning. Auston coughs.

“Sorry. Yeah.”

“Did you… did you hear anything I just said?” Mitch asks.

“Not really.” Auston admits. He caught a few fragments of Mitch’s speech, each word sounding more steeped in regret than the last. None of it sounded like information Auston wants to process while running on empty. “Can I call you back?”

“Oh,” Mitch says, and his voice is pitched with something that sounds almost like disappointment. “Yeah, uh. Call whenever. I hope you feel better.”

“Thanks,” Auston replies, and then the line goes dead.

With hopefully the last of the rum expelled from his stomach, and with one final chug of water from the tap of his bathtub, Auston hauls himself up and staggers into bed. He winds up sleeping off the hangover until quarter past two, and completely forgets his promise to call Mitch back.

 

-x-

 

It’s mostly self-preservation instinct that guides Auston to avoiding Mitch at practice the next day. It’s probably the first time that’s ever kicked in for him, basically since meeting Mitch, and it’s an odd sensation to say the least, not unlike one of his limbs falling asleep and getting all numb and staticky.

The phone call in the middle of throwing his guts up filters back to Auston’s consciousness like a bad dream. Auston has known Mitch long enough to know that Mitch likes to talk through things, or at least be as vocal as possible whether it leads to a positive outcome or not. But Auston can’t imagine whatever sadomasochistic instinct made Marns call him not twelve hours after they kissed _wanting to talk about it_.

And then. There’s that whole bag Auston has not fully processed yet, either. The part where he and Mitch kissed. More than just a kiss, really, since Auston doesn’t tend to kiss people the way they kissed the other night.

At the very least, Auston has a car ride with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel in solitude to steel himself for facing Mitch at practice. The only notification from Mitch waiting for him in the morning was his daily snap, which Auston knows for a fact is just a generic one he sends to, like, a dozen people to keep their streaks. It’s not personal, which is kind of a relief, since he could use a little impersonal distance right now. He just wants to put off Mitch approaching him to _talk_ about their kiss for as long as possible.

Auston’s just trying to hedge his bets. Whatever Mitch could _possibly_ have to say, it can’t be good. He reviewed every scenario his mind could conjure once he bounced back from the hangover. In the best possible outcome, Mitch reverts to being awkward and tentative, and they slowly but eventually repair their friendship — although it never quite gets to where it was before. Every other scenario either involves Mitch yelling colorful, humiliating insults at him, or gently rejecting him — neither or which particularly appeals to Auston.

So, he figures, as long as he can chill in denial for a while, he can avoid cycling through the other stages of grief for their friendship.

Mitch apparently doesn’t share that mindset, or is at least completely oblivious to Auston’s sudden adoption of it. “Everything alright?” he asks, giving Auston a sidelong glance.

“Yup,” Auston answers, keeping his head down. He takes his time lacing up his skates, pulling slowly and tying the laces into a meticulous knot. It almost works; the trained focus on such a mundane task almost makes the feeling of Mitch’s gaze fade to nothing.

 

-x-

 

After a week, things are still complicated. To top that off, they’ve lost three miserable games in a row and Auston’s experiencing a minor, but still worrisome, scoring drought that keeps getting brought up in media scrums.

Auston has made up every excuse to avoid Mitch, claiming everything from having to FaceTime his sisters to emergency shopping trips to faking an appointment at the garage to get out of hanging out. Every time Mitch has even tried approaching him to talk about something other than their power play, Auston’s brushed him off, mumbling a hurried excuse and bailing. It’s shitty of him, he knows. And he feels bad, because he’s not being particularly subtle about it, either. But it would feel way worse to have his feelings for Mitch thrown in his face, and have their friendship confirmed as permanently ruined, the second he and Mitch start talking in earnest.

Today is no different. Mitch keeps shooting him these imploring little glances. Auston knows he’s trying to get his attention, but he ducks away, averting his gaze in favor of packing his bag with particular focus.

“Later, boys,” Auston calls, saluting the guys left in the locker room as hurries towards the exit.

He doesn’t notice Mitch following him until he hears, “Psst!” in this obnoxious faux-whisper. Auston ignores it on purpose, just continues making his way down the hallway.

“ _Psst_ ,” Mitch repeats, turning his whisper up to a volume that probably no longer counts as a whisper. When Auston deins to look over his shoulder, Mitch waves him over with a rapid movement of his hand.

Auston ducks around the corner with a sigh and fixes Mitch with the most expectant look he can muster. Inside, he’s all nervous, vibrating atoms, a volcano about to erupt. “What’s up?”

Mitch’s expression sinks into one of desperation, and Auston ignores the tug in his chest. “I _really_ need to talk to you, man,” he pleads.

Auston wonders if it’s a product of having just been in a semi-long-term, serious relationship that Mitch suddenly seems good at communication. He wonders if it’s a sign of maturity, if all guys who have had steady partners somehow develop the capacity to talk about shit that Auston would much, _much_ prefer to sweep under the rug. But then he wonders if that’s just Marns.

“About what?” Auston asks, anticipating the sigh from Mitch even before it happens.

“You _know_ what.”

This is uncharted territory, is the thing. They’ve never really been in a situation that involved both each other _and_ a series of deeply complicated emotions, so Auston has no clue how to proceed. He and Mitch have always been pretty candid and open with one another, but if there’s a rule about not talking to your best friend who you kissed and who kissed you back but potentially wasn’t into it, Mitch seems keen on breaking it.

“You wanna talk about this _now_?” Auston asks, squirting water into his mouth and not caring that half of it ends up on his collar.

“You’re kind of avoiding me, dude.” Mitch counters, pressing a shoulder against the wall and effectively blocking Auston’s way. “We kissed. It happened. We shouldn’t just _not_ talk about it.”

And yet, Auston would love nothing more.

Ignoring everything inside him begging him to just change subjects, or better yet, flee the scene entirely, Auston replies, “What is there to talk about?”

“ _Dude_ ,” Mitch says, with an emphasis that verges on patronizing. “We should talk about it. It clearly meant something, or… like, there was a reason for it or something. So. It’s important.” Auston’s tempted to plug his ears and blabber a bunch of nonsense to drown out the sound of Mitch talking. “Obviously, this didn’t come out of nowhere. And it affects our...friendship, one way or another.”

What drives Auston the craziest is that Marns is being so _clinical_ with it. He acts as though it happened to two completely other people. Like they’re watching game tape, criticizing technique, analyzing tactics. It just seems to logically follow, then, that Mitch’s objectiveness means that the kiss meant nothing to him. Auston feels a lot of ways about the kiss but he certainly doesn’t feel _removed_ from it to the point of being capable, willing, and excited to engage in a discussion about it. He still can’t pass his front hallway without his cheeks flushing at the memory of slamming Mitch into the wall, remembering every last thing he wanted from Mitch. Every last thing he’s wanted from Mitch for a while.

Mitch can’t just _decide_ that what’s healthiest is for them to closely analyze the events leading up to and including their kiss. He should be allowed to just turn out the intricacies of their relationship; the nuances, the words they’d never say out loud, to flip them under a microscope and pry them apart.

“You ever stop to think about whether _I_ wanna talk about this or not?” Auston snaps. He never raises his voice, can’t think of a time he’s been angry and unrestrained enough to do so.

Mitch freezes, seemingly taken aback. Their carefully-constructed facade of normalcy cracks under the weight of all the things they’re not saying to each other.

“Look,” Auston says with a grit of his teeth, “what happened… it didn’t mean anything. Just because it happened doesn’t mean there was a reason for it. It was stupid and in the moment. Stop trying to make it into something it’s not. We should just… move on from it, yeah?”

The lie is magnificent and sounds flimsy and raw even to Auston, but he doesn’t shy away from it. If Mitch deducts that a kiss of that level can’t just mean _nothing_ , he doesn’t say anything. In fact, it’s like a switch turns off. Auston’s never seen Mitch’s face so studiously, carefully blank, and the abrupt transition from his usual openness to this indifference only makes it that much more jarring.

“Fine, Auston,” Mitch says, his voice cool and completely devoid of any emotion, let alone his previous enthusiasm. Auston has to look away. “Sorry.”

He turns around and stalks off. Auston exhales shakily, leaning against the cold wall.

And, just like that, the leaden weight he’s become so familiar with coils itself back in Auston’s stomach and locks into place. It feels an awful lot like a deadbolt.

 

-x-

 

After that, Auston feels things slowly start to unravel, and he’s never been good at putting things back together. He’s the guy that builds them from scratch.

He and Mitch have been unpredictable and rocky this year. Auston thought, if anything, them kissing was the catalyst for the destruction of their relationship. He had no idea of the scale of feelings, the magnitude of pain he’d experience when Mitch suddenly revoked all traces of friendship. Not that Auston can blame him, after the way he treated him. Now all of Auston’s fears have been realized, and he doesn’t even get the consolation of knowing he was true and honest with the most important person in his life.

Food barely has any taste, practices feel rote and dull, and Auston even finds it difficult to stir up excitement for games. The other guys must sense his weird vibe, because they leave him alone most of the time, even in the locker room. Patty lays a hand on his shoulder and gives him a kind of loaded look that unnerves Auston slightly, if only because Patty’s looks have a way of penetrating right to your soul. But even he recognizes that Auston resolutely does not want to talk to anybody about what he’s going through. How could he?

It’s embarrassing, is what it is. He’s a goddamn idiot.

Seeing Mitch daily tears him apart nearly worse now than it did before they kissed, because it seems Mitch would rather die than acknowledge Auston anymore. If Auston thought Mitch’s clinical analysis of their kiss was cold, it’s nothing compared to how Mitch completely avoids him now. Mitch is animated and loud around everyone else, but he immediately shuts down, switches it all off when Auston enters his periphery. He goes blank whenever they have no choice but to interact, and Auston never knew how painful it could be.

He wonders, too, if this is just how it will be for the rest of their lives, the rest of their careers. Maybe it will get so bad it causes a schism in the team, or one of them requests a trade. All the outcomes Auston considers are bleak, but his mind races, sprints through them at a rate that leaves him heartbroken and on-edge, most days.

Other fish in the sea, and all that, but his sea, he’s realizing, has always been more of a pond, narrowed down to just him and one other fish. Just two stupid-as-fuck fish, swimming pathetic circles around each other ever since they found themselves in the same pond in the first place.

 

-x-

 

They’re up against the Habs a few days later. Usually, big rivalry matches get Auston all keyed up, and he tries, he really tries to get hyped for it tonight. He’s desperate for something that will make his spirits feel even a little less demolished.

Halfway through the first period, they’re already tied two-two. The game has been fast and rough so far, all edges. Mitch has been exceptional tonight, zipping around the d like he was born to, his fast hands like magic. Auston’s always in awe of Mitch’s hockey, probably always will be, and that thought just makes his stomach twist even more.

They’re still a force to reckon with together, too, and their power play unit is still fearsome despite their off-ice problems. In the middle of their first power play of the night, Auston notices that Shaw won’t leave Mitch alone. Even as Auston’s sprinting across the ice, he notices that Shaw keeps following Mitch, crowding up in his space. When someone manages to clear the puck out of the Habs’ zone, Shaw skates after Mitch, when he should be focused on killing the penalty. Auston knows that look in his eyes, too. It’s the look of someone looking for a fight.

Auston feels his breathing start to thin, starts like he can’t suck enough air into his lungs. Shaw is a big body, and his hits are dirty, and him going after Mitch is clearly an attempt to slow them.

It happens fast, when Shaw just throws his body against Mitch, in a totally uncalled for check against the boards. Mitch doesn’t crumple, but he stays down for far longer than Auston can bear to witness.

Logic disappears fast, evaporating into thin air, and Auston ignores the whistles and charges towards him. It’s reckless, probably, because despite his size, Auston’s too valuable to just throw himself around stupidly. But something overtakes him, stronger than the rational voice telling him he can’t afford to get injured this season. Shaw’s toeing the blue line when Auston hurls himself at him, ignoring the screaming pain as their bodies make contact. Auston’s about to push him and drop gloves, but Shaw twists, shoves back at Auston, and they’re close enough to the boards that it wedges Auston in. When Auston tries to use the force of his body to swing back, Shaw just forces him back again. This time, Auston falls to the ice.

And then there’s nothing, blissfully nothing, but an ignition of fire in his right shoulder.

 

-x-

 

Auston likes the medical staff just fine, but they’re never meeting on pleasant terms in the middle of a game. They all take turns prodding him and cradling his arm and shooting him apologetic looks, and Auston does his best to keep a level head. The pain isn’t isolated to his arm, but that seems to be where the most concern is leveled.

His thoughts jump rapidly between the venom that seemed to flood his body the moment he saw Shaw go after Mitch and the instant recoil he felt once he got knocked onto his shoulder. Babs will probably have his head for a stunt like that. He doesn’t regret what he did; he just feels like a fucking idiot for wearing his heart so plainly on his sleeve. Because the truth is, he doesn’t get physical if it’s not over the puck, and he wouldn’t have done that if Shaw was being a nuisance towards any of the other guys.

The first intermission just started, and he’s received a definitive scratch from the rest of the game, just waiting for a final assessment on how long he’ll be out. That it’s the shoulder he’s got a history with currently supported by a sling is probably a bad sign, though.

Auston waits in the med room for the rest of the game. Besides the shoulder, the staff runs a few additional tests, checking for signs of a concussion, just in case, and dabbing antiseptic on a cut on his forehead. They give him two painkillers and a paper cup of water, and he accepts them both gratefully. He barely follows the remainder of the game, only glancing up to check the score when he hears the final horn. They won.

The last person Auston expects to see walk through the doors after the game is Mitch. And yet, there he is — with a startling grace despite all but bursting through the doors. He’s strikingly beautiful, Auston thinks.

Mitch looks like he’s just seen a ghost. Auston shoots him a half-hearted smile.

“You didn’t have to, you know?” Mitch says tentatively, perching himself on the chair opposite Auston. He’s out of his pads, but is still dressed in his under armour. He must have rushed right over after stripping himself of the heavy stuff.

Auston shrugs with his left shoulder The movement still sends a sharp thread of pain across his chest, twinges in all the places that are apparently going to take four to six weeks to heal. He turns his face to wince, but Mitch still sees.

“No, like you _really_ didn’t have to.”

“I wasn’t really thinking,” Auston admits. It’s mostly true; him going after Shaw was thirty percent hockey instinct, seventy percent Mitch instinct.

Mitch’s brow furrows. “It just sucks. You’ll be out so long.”

“Oh, gee, really?” Auston bites. It’s not fair of him, not really, but Auston finds he can’t say anything else right now. He feels exposed, like he revealed his hand, but also like nobody noticed or cared. And everything, _everything_ feels beyond his control right now.

Mitch’s frown deepens. “I feel bad, dude. This happened ’cause of me.”

“Not really,” Auston answers, turning away to face the TV. “It happened because Shaw was being a dumbass.”

“Okay, fine,” Mitch says, and Auston doesn’t look, but he doesn’t have to to know Mitch just rolled his eyes.

Mitch heaves himself out of his chair a few moments later, and leaves without a word. Auston wonders if he’ll ever be okay with this being the extent of their relationship now.

 

-x-

 

Life goes on, naturally. Days are slow and tedious, but they do progress.

Auston’s excused from practices and has the option of attending games in the press box. Other than check-ins with the medical staff every few days, he’s alone most of the time. It’s not the worst thing in the world, considering how easily he can distract himself from everything if he sets his mind to it. He only marginally regrets it when he opts out of joining the team on their week-long roadie in the middle of December.

All the time alone is beneficial, though, because it forces him to stare down this problems head-on. He knows he can’t neglect them much longer, can’t keep pretending he’s only watching them through a window when he’s really the only person who keeps getting in his way. And, well, it’s not like lying has gotten him very far, besides.

It takes time, but eventually, the instructions to not move his shoulder turn into physio appointments, and the long stretches away from the rink turn into skating for half an hour here or there in a no-contact jersey. Mitch still keeps his distance, but there’s less malice. Auston imagines Mitch telling him that he’s _not mad, just disappointed_ , which, frankly, makes two of them.

 

-x-

 

By the time the holidays roll around, Auston can hardly believe they’re already on the precipice of a new year. His life has changed in innumerable ways since the very beginning of the season, so much so that September feels like lifetimes ago. For so long, Auston’s had this feeling like he’s watching the events of his life unfold without participating in them, and it clouds his chest with a sad haze that troubles him. The excitement the holidays usually brings only washes over him, and he finds he can’t really enjoy things in earnest, like the discomfort of where he stands with Mitch is holding him back. Auston knows he has to fix things. He doesn't want their relationship to unravel over a cheap lie.

He RSVPs _yes_ to the Marleau’s New Years party mostly because the thought of ringing in the New Year alone in his condo just makes him sad, and because Patty asked him via FaceTime, with all the boys crowding the screen, shoving each other out of the way with hidden elbows. Auston couldn’t say no to the boys.

The night of the party, Auston goes over early with a bottle of wine. He offered to help them set up, even though their house has been professionally decorated with silver New Years-themed ornaments and pretty lights, and they have a full catering staff unloading huge plates of food on the kitchen island. So he consigns himself to mostly playing with the boys to at least keep them out of everyone’s way until other children arrive. They spend a good half hour just showing Auston everything Santa brought them, and he loses himself in their joy. It’s nice.

“You wanna open that bottle of wine you brought?” Christina suggests, darting between checking on the caterers in the kitchen and making sure each of the boys’ outfits are stain-free, including Patty’s. “While we wait for people?”

Usually, Auston wouldn’t start a night with red wine, but it’s early and it’s New Year’s and he hasn’t felt even remotely celebratory at all this holiday season until literally five minutes ago, so he assents.

“The opener’s in the top drawer of the island. Glasses should be on the counter somewhere,” Christina calls, as she ushers Brody upstairs to change out of a chocolate-stained pair of jeans.

“I’ll have some, too,” Patty says, even though it’s barely six and he’s never a huge drinker.

Auston pours all three of them a glass and brings them out carefully into the den, where they boys have assembled to construct the tallest lego tower their collective heights will allow. Just in case, he returns to grab the bottle from the kitchen.

Turns out, one bottle of wine between three people, one of whom can’t help from nervously pounding glasses back, goes pretty quickly. Christina’s distributing the remaining drops among the three of them before Auston’s fully aware of it.

The sun is just ducking behind the silver clouds when Patty’s phone lights up and chimes. He’s got one of those fancy doorbells with the camera in it, and after a quick glance at his phone, he announces, “That’ll be Mitchy.”

The boys all holler excitedly. Auston feels his blood pressure spike. He should have figured Mitch would also be one of the first to arrive to Pat’s party.

“By the way, are you guys okay —” Pat starts, and Auston knows he can’t avoid his concern, but right now is almost definitely the wrong time to be discussing this.

“I got it!” Auston calls, cutting off Patty’s question with a dismissive wave and leaping out of his seat. He grabs his wine glass, too, for good measure, and takes a swig of it as he pads down the hallway to the front door.

Maybe it’s the wine, or the New Year's’ spirit, or something else entirely that’s got him loose tonight, as he pulls open the Marleau’s front door. Maybe he’s just tired of his best friend not being his best friend.

“ _Hi_ ,” Auston drawls, his cheeks taught with a smile he finds himself unable to control. And, like, _seriously_? What the fuck. This is the first thing he’s said to Mitch directly in almost two weeks. Definitely the red wine’s fault. But Mitch just looks so… _Mitch_ — cheeks pink from the cold, hair actually done for once, one side of his coat collar sticking up, and Auston seriously doesn’t think he could ever bring himself to stop loving him. As if he even has a choice.

“ _Hi_ yourself,” Mitch says back, a little skeptically, but he’s smiling, too. He’s carrying a huge tote bag of presents glimmering with shiny wrapping paper, like he’s some breathtaking, hot, incredible New Year’s version of Santa. He clears his throat and Auston steps aside to let him in.

“Come on in,” Auston says, as if it’s his own house. “You’re the first to arrive.” He feels a bit like a dipshit, off to the side saying stupid things while Mitch slides out of his shoes and jacket, but then Mitch pushes a bottle of red wine into his chest and beams up at him and Auston feels totally absolved.

“Happy New Year, Aus,” Mitch says, with the sincerity of, like, an animated reindeer.

“Happy New Year,” Auston replies with a cough. Any longer looking at Mitch in Patty’s dim hallway and Auston’s going to have a panic attack, he knows. He just knows. It’s as though Mitch is constantly cast in golden light; completely, heart-stoppingly perfect.

Auston is so in love with him it’s embarrassing.

“How’s the shoulder?” Mitch says after a beat.

Auston instinctively reaches up to touch it. “Not bad. Getting there, I guess.”

Before Mitch can say anything else, all four boys come barreling down the hallway towards them. Auston has never been more grateful for the complete lack of social awareness of a group of boys under ten in his _life_. Each of them latch onto one of Mitch’s limbs, probably to make up for the fact that Patty warned them to be careful around Auston’s limbs. They create enough of a distraction that Auston can slip away with most of his dignity in tact. He puts Mitch’s bottle of wine on the table in the living room silently designated for _classy booze_ , and immediately makes a beeline for the kitchen in search of more immediately-accessible alcohol. Last time he poked his head in the kitchen, there was a bartender setting up a platter of champagne flutes to pass around, and she’s luckily still working on that.

“Any chance I could get one?” he asks, as she finishes pouring the last of the champagne in her current bottle.

By the time he’s downed two, half the food that was initially laid out in the kitchen has officially been taken out into circulation in the main party spaces, and most of the team and their partners and kids have arrived. Auston dutifully goes around saying hi to everybody, and luckily remembers to sneak a few canapés to ensure that his stomach isn’t just bubbles by the end of the night.

 

-x-

 

There’s a reason why Coach invited him to practices and roadies while nursing an injured shoulder, Auston realizes, and that’s that it’s far easier to forget your troubles when surrounded by a group of people who’ve got your back. Something is in the air tonight, Auston doesn’t even think it’s alcohol-induced, and it makes him contemplative and weirdly misty-eyed. He’s...just…

He’s suddenly so enormously grateful for the lessons this past year has taught him. And, shit — that’s _growth_ , right? That he can still be thankful, despite the absolute shitstorm of the past few months?

Speaking of the shitstorm, Auston barely sees Mitch after greeting him. He’s more drunk on the feeling of being invincible because of his team than champagne as he catches up with Freddie and pretends like Zach isn’t inching himself and Willy closer to the bouquet of mistletoe still hung in the living room. One day, he’ll have to go back to a regular practice schedule, to seeing Mitch at least three hours a day. He’ll have to, like, communicate with him properly, and for the sake of team dynamics, he’ll have to swallow his feelings instead of just pretending he can drop Mitch like a dime whenever he want to kiss him too badly. But tonight, Auston’s happy to let sleeping dogs lie, and to vow to better manage his feelings in the morning. In the new year.

Pat and Christina have thought of everything for this party. Naturally, that includes a karaoke machine; one that seems to carry the out-of-pitch voices of his teammates throughout the main floor of the house. The line is finally looking short enough to take Mo up on his offer of a duet, when he spots Mitch making a furious beeline for his right side.

“Hey, can I talk to you?” Mitch says, softly touching Auston’s elbow.

Dazed, Auston says, “Uh, sure.” He’s not the drunkest he’s ever been. Not even the second drunkest he’s ever been. He knows this, knows he still has control of every faculty except apparently the one that would keep him from volunteering for karaoke - but he’s still drunk enough to be stuck by a fit of giggles at Mitch’s serious expression. Drunk enough to let Mitch tug him upstairs into one of the bedrooms, away from the music and laughter. A guest bedroom, from the looks of it. It’s shadowy, lit only by a single lamp in the corner of the room, and it smells like lavender. Mitch shuts the door behind them and Auston counts to ten, just to make sure he actually can.

“You’ve been hot and cold with me for weeks. No, _months_.”

Auston flushes, remembering the last time Mitch confronted him to talk and where that got them. But then, he’s vowing to be better, and, hell — why can’t he start today.

“Where is this coming from?” Auston asks, proud that he chose a diplomatic response over a dismissal, like he would have tried a few weeks ago.

“Come on, Aus, don’t bullshit. We haven’t been the same.”

Auston sighs. He should have known Mitch would see right through the faux diplomacy. “Yeah, I’m, uh...” he starts, and perches himself on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry for that.”

“I just wanna know why.”

If Auston tells him, there’s no going back. No hiding behind flimsy excuses and lies and pretending the butterflies dwelling in him haven’t morphed into elephants, stomping over everything. There’s no being best friends again, either. It’ll change everything, on a cellular level, more so than pretending a kiss that turned his world upside down meant nothing. No salvaging what’s left.

But Auston doesn’t want to be afraid forever.

Auston feels the sweat on his palms. All the voices in his head concur that this is a bad idea, but Auston disagrees. It’s a bad idea, but it’s also possibly the best idea, the only idea. That realization surges through him. It’s the only thing that matters, anyway.

“Okay, what would you say if I said I’m in love with you,” he says, and the whole entire history of the universe distills to this precise moment, to the two of them in Patty’s guest bedroom.

Mitch, who moments ago looked like he was ready to unleash hell on Auston, pauses, and Auston watches some of his resolve crumble just a hair. “What? What the fuck?”

“Like, would that be the worst thing in the world?” Auston continues. When Mitch does nothing but gape at him, he clarifies, “I _kissed_ you.”

Mitch’s cheeks redden and he scratches the side of his head. “Yeah, Aus, you _kissed_ me and then you told me it didn’t mean anything. What do you even — ”

“I lied.” Auston says, a little hysterically. Mitch is hovering over him and his eyes keep darting between Auston’s face and some distant point on the wall behind him. “This can’t come as a shock, dude.”

“I don’t… what the _fuck_?” Mitch says again, and Auston flinches. “Why did you kiss me? Why did you _lie_? Do you even realize I — I tried so hard… I was _okay_ , I had accepted it and then — ” He looks at Auston. “This is a lot to process, dude.”

Auston can barely register the words coming out of Mitch’s mouth, distracted by the way his skin prickles, the sweat that beads at his neck, and the champagne bubbling away in his stomach. Auston wishes he felt more grounded. He wishes his shoulder didn’t ache. Mitch’s gaze is unnerving, and Auston just laid the fragments of his heart before him, and he’s kind of having a hard time breathing, now.

Instead of answering Mitch directly, he holds up a finger and says, “Would you excuse me, for a sec?” and he hops off the bed and away. He makes his way down the hallway in search of the bathroom, and exhales in relief when he finds one unoccupied.

 

Auston closes the door and sinks down against it. He heaves a shaky breath, reminding himself that he just expressed himself in a way he's wanted to for so long. He told Mitch how he feels, however frantically, and the world didn’t implode. He took the first step off a cliff where, hopefully, a resolution with Mitch pools at the bottom. He should feel relieved, but instead, his body is edging him towards a panic attack. There are several breathing exercises he learned for this very purpose that he’s suddenly blanking on, and he’s never felt this hopeless in his entire life. The air is thin and intangible, and there’s not nearly enough of it.

After five minutes of labouring through half-assed breathing exercises, there’s a knock at the door. It’s more several urgent _thuds_ , really, and Auston absently feels guilty for holing up in the bathroom to have his pseudo panic attack.

“Aus, are you in there?”

It’s Mitch.

“Yeah,” Auston calls back, voice cracking.

“Are you okay? You kind of bolted.” Somehow, he doesn’t sound mad.

“I’ve been better,” Auston answers, voice breaking.

Auston feels the door shift slightly behind his back, as though Mitch is settling in against it on the other side. When Mitch speaks next, his voice is way closer to Auston’s ear than before.

“I shouldn’t have chewed you out. I’m sorry if my reaction freaked you out.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I deserved that,” Auston says through the closed door. “I keep fucking up with us.”

Mitch makes a disbelieving sound. “No, dude, you don’t. I dunno, maybe we’re both to blame.”

“Maybe,” Auston answers, fiddling with the frayed knee of his jeans. “I’m still sorry, though. For, all of the, you know…” He gestures with his hands, even though Mitch can’t see him. Mitch probably senses it, though. “I’m just tired of pretending.” Weirdly enough, it’s easier talking to Mitch through a door, and Auston feels his heart start to steady.

Mitch exhales slowly. “I think I am, too,” he replies. “Honestly, I just never thought it would be possible.”

“What wouldn’t be possible?”

Muffled sounds of the party filter in behind Mitch. Karaoke has stopped; the music is dimmed but he can hear Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve turned up through the surround sound. Auston thinks people are already starting a countdown. It sounds like they’re at _twenty_ , _nineteen_ , _eighteen_ , _seventeen_...

“You feeling the same way.”

“The same way,” Auston repeats, like he’s feeling the words out in his mouth. It dawns on him, slowly, gloriously, terrifyingly, what that means. Suddenly, every bone in his body has liquefied, his organs have turned molten.

Through the door, Mitch sighs loudly. “I thought I was gonna die on that hill,” Mitch whispers, like a confession. “Seriously, Aus, what the hell.” He doesn’t sound mad, per se, but Auston still treads lightly considering he is very much locked in a bathroom in an attempt to avoid Mitch’s reaction to his own love confession.

“If we’re talking hills, here, then I want you to know that I, like, legitimately, um. Love you. You got that, right?”

“Yeah, I got that. I probably should’ve figured you were lying about the kiss, anyway,” he says, and Auston’s cheeks burn. “I’m just _—_ We never… You always…”

Auston rests his head back against the door. “Yeah, I know.”

Mitch must move, or stand up or something, because the weight anchoring Auston on the other side of the door disappears suddenly.

“We can’t do it like this,” Mitch says. The door handle starts jiggling. “Aus, please unlock the door. So help me god.”

Auston stands up carefully. His head spins a little from the blood rush, and his stomach is still churning with everything he’s managed to just say. He slowly unlocks the door and opens it up.

That’s when Mitch lunges at him, wrapping him in a crushing embrace and burying his face in Auston’s shoulder.

_Seven. Six. Five —_

“Ah, Marns, the shoulder,” Auston starts, wincing slightly at the pain.

“Sorry!” Mitch says, startled, before rearranging himself so that Auston’s no longer carrying his weight.

There turns out to be no convenient way for Mitch to be holding onto him with their centers of gravity so high. The movement causes them both to fall to their knees after some grappling, like their legs simultaneously give way beneath them.

“You’re an idiot,” Mitch mumbles into the crook of Auston’s neck.

_Two. One —_

And then Mitch is kissing him. A bruising, clamouring, collar-tugging, all-consuming kiss, so wonderful and vital that Auston can barely kiss back fast enough. He brings a hand up to cradle the side of Mitch’s face. He wants to hold Mitch, or shove him against a wall like last time, but really, all he wants is Mitch.

Downstairs, people are cheering and clapping and singing and wishing others a happy new year. Auston’s not the type of person to believe that a different calendar necessarily means a new beginning, a fresh start. But things are changing, shifting almost cosmically, right here in Patty’s hallway, in real time. Auston’s powerless and completely unwilling to stop it. He knows he’s fucked up in countless ways since the beginning of the season.

But, fuck it. He wants everything. The big and the small of it. He’s done standing in his own way.

Mitch tugs at his collar, his smile nips at Auston’s lips like they’re both too frantic to actually kiss properly. And it’s — god, it’s epic. Auston would bust his shoulder a hundred times over, would sit out the rest of the goddamn season if it meant Mitch would just keep kissing him like this.

“Happy New Year,” Mitch says, cheeky but breathless, as the crowd downstairs starts singing Auld Lang Syne.

Auston just shakes his head in disbelief, by way of responding, before ducking down to kiss Mitch again.

Mitch rolls back on his heels, grin wild and sweet and just for Auston. For the first time in ages, he feels hope spark bright in his chest. Auston tries to think of the last time he felt like this. For the life of him, he can’t remember.

 

-x-

 

The sun is breaking against the pale grey sky, shining like a pearl among the clouds. Even with the smog in the air, its rays strain and push their way through, illuminating this small corner of the world in white gold light. There’s a momentary lapse in the wind, and Auston steadies himself. The four corners of his feet planted on the concrete, chin up.

It’s weird, but Toronto is kind of beautiful like this. Auston likes Toronto like this. Kind of cold, kind of grey, kind of quiet, the streets humming patiently before the life seeps back in. Daylight breaking on the horizon. Mitch crossing the parking lot with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

His hands are shaking by the time Mitch makes over to him, closing the distance with a smile that Auston could lose himself in forever. “I love you,” Auston tells him, instead of _hello_. He feels a little breathless, blown away by the fact that he gets to just _say it_.

“You’ve said that already, we’ve been over this,” Mitch says, like he’s trying to sound serious, but mostly coming off all fond. It looks like he’s maybe five seconds from breaking into a goofy smile.

“I still mean it,” Auston replies with a roll of his eyes. He means it today and he meant it yesterday and he’ll mean it tomorrow and every conceivable day after that. They’ve been standing in the parking lot so long it’s grown uncomfortably chilly but Auston couldn’t care less.

“Well, that’s good, then,” Mitch says. His voice sounds light. Happy, almost. “Because I love you too.” He’d said it back the night of the New Years party, but Auston has trouble wrapping his mind around it. After all his

“I guess we’re just a couple of bros in love?” Auston jokes, and if he went back in time, there is no way his former self would believe that, one day, he’d be joking with Mitch about them being in love.

Mitch shrugs. “Guess so,” he says, with a coy smile. And then, “You better buckle up, Matthews, because I’m about to boyfriend the _hell_ out of you.”

“Nerd,” Auston says. He knows exactly how good of a boyfriend Mitch can be, but he restrains himself from saying as much out loud. He doesn’t want to spoil the moment by making it about something other than the two of them.

Mitch’s hair is being tossed around in several directions by the whipping wind, but he’s smiling at Auston, small and indulgent, eyes squinting against the sun. Babs is gonna make them skate suicides, when they get inside.

Mitch is magnanimous. He’s huge, not like a hurricane but like the sky. Auston feels impossibly small by comparison. Auston’s just a cloud on his horizon. Or maybe, he’s more like a tree planted in the ground, rooted and unwavering.

The clouds part overhead as the two of them make their way towards the entrance of the arena. They walk together slowly, deliberately taking their time, happy to linger before it’s impossible to put off reality any longer. At the last second, Auston takes Mitch’s hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Sweet Disposition like a hundred times while writing this, does it show?
> 
> Come talk to me and/or yell at me to finish my wips on my [writing blog](https://oldjolt.tumblr.com)!


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